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THE MAKING 

OF 

HERBERT HOOVER 



THE MAKING 

OF 

HERBERT HOOVER 



BY 
ROSE WILDER LANE 




NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO. 

1920 

*4 1 ■ '^♦» 



Copyright, 1920, by 
The Century Co. 



Copyright, 1<)20, by 
Sunset Magazine, Inc. 



©CI,A5978]8 



V- Q ■ '■ 
• 135 



PREFACE 

This is a story stranger than fiction and as real 
as America. In Herbert Hoover's own experi- 
ence, from his strange boyhood to his myth-like 
success, he has lived through all the phases of de- 
velopment that have created America itself. The 
forces that made the country made the man and 
behind the growth of his soul there is shown the 
growth of the nation. 

From the prologue, with its generations of 
pioneers facing ever west, to the epilogue, with 
its record of continuing service, at home and 
abroad, this story proves that, in the most subtle 
sense, Herbert Hoover represents America. 

The method used in handling this biographical 
material is so unusual that a word of explanation 
is necessary. The facts on which the story is 
based I do not believe to be open to dispute. 
Every detail of them has been collected with meti- 
culous care from sources of unquestionable au- 
thority. The interpretation of them is my own. 
I have endeavored to present as a living human 
being the man whose life has been made by these 
facts, to show the influences of heredity and en- 



vi PREFACE 

vironment that went toward the making of his 
character as I believe it to be. For the purely 
interpretative portions of the work, therefore, I 
claim no authority save my own opinion and that 
of many collaborators intimately acquainted with 
Mr. Hoover since his infancy. 

The greater share of any praise this book may 
earn belongs to Charles Kellogg Field, editor of 
Sunset magazine and good friend of all California 
writers. It was he who inspired the work, col- 
lected a large part of the material, assisted day 
by day in the writing, and edited the whole. If, 
when the curtain descends upon these scenes in 
which we have tried to show the drama and the 
meaning of one great American life, there are 
any cries of ^'Author!" from the audience, I can 
appear upon the stage only long enough to say, 
''Spot-light, please, for Charles Kellogg Field, 
classmate and friend of Herbert Hoover.^' 

E. W. L. 



THE MAKING OF HEEBERT HOOVER 



PEOLOaUE 

THE BLOOD IN HIS VEINS 

IN the latter half of the sixteenth century a 
Roman Catholic King of France persecuted 
with religious fervor the Protestants in his 
realm. At that time there lived in the environs 
of Paris a man named Huber. He was thrifty, 
sagacious, and prosperous in a small way; his 
family was growing up around him; his life ap- 
peared destined to ripen into old age as serenely 
as that of the fruit-tree in his garden. He pos- 
sessed all things to make a man contented, save 
one. 

^^The need of a man's soul,'' he said, ^4s to be 
free." For the sake of that freedom which he 
valued more than all his possessions he tore up 
the roots of his life. He and his family, hunted 
fugitives, escaped into Holland with nothing ex- 
cept the contents of the bundle he carried on his 
back. 

No more is known of him. The years buried 
him with the multitudes of the forgotten dead ; the 
language of the alien people among whom he died 
engulfed even his name. His sons were called 



4 THE MAKING OF 

Hoover. But his spirit lived in them. It was 
one of the seeds from which, in the unknown fu- 
ture, a nation was to grow. 

Four centuries marched over his grave, bury- 
ing beside him kingdoms and faiths and genera- 
tions of men, swinging the world's center of 
gravity westward across an ocean to a new conti- 
nent, and out of that nation rose a man who was 
to make and unmake kingdoms, to feed whole 
peoples, and to sway the fortunes of a world war. 

This man sat at a desk in a business office, a 
quiet place in the midst of chaos. A structure 
reared by centuries was rocking on its founda- 
tions, twenty-six nations were struggling in a 
death-grapple, Europe faced starvation, America 
was shaken as by an earthquake. The cry was 
for strong men, for men who could rule. Free 
peoples gave up their freedom; men and opinions 
were conscripted ; old, dearly bought liberties were 
abandoned in the panic of the world. 

Herbert Hoover, descendant through four centu- 
ries from Huber the Frenchman, was Food Dic- 
tator to one hundred million persons. The Allied 
cause depended upon food, the food could come 
only from America, and Herbert Hoover was re- 
sponsible for America's action. Greater power 
than that of an emperor was in his hands, and men 
expected him to use it. 

*^No,'' he said. ** Freedom is a force too pre- 



HERBERT HOOVER 5 

cious to be destroyed. Men do not need rulers; 
they need education. I shall tell the Ameri- 
can people the facts; they will act upon them. I 
shall organize their efforts, but the power that 
will make them successful must come from a free 
people.'' 

The authentic voice of America spoke those 
words, heard through a babel of hysterical shouts 
about Americanism. It was the voice of men and 
women who broke the resistance of an untamed 
continent, who destroyed a wilderness to build a 
republic. Herbert Hoover spoke for them because 
their spirit had made his. Behind him were five 
generations of men whose laborious, inconspicuous 
lives had served a great ideal. Their struggle to 
create America had created Herbert Hoover. 

The need of the human soul for freedom had 
driven Huber from France. Nearly two hundred 
years later, in 1740, the hope of finding freedom 
in a new world brought his three descendants, 
Christian, Jonas, and Andrew Hoover, across the 
perilous seas. On the frontier in Maryland 
Andrew built a log house and established a home. 

He was a strong, hard-fisted man, with a quiet 
manner and a merry eye. He became a good 
woodsman and a clever hunter. His cabin was 
comfortable, and the small farm thrived. But, 
alone in the woods with his ax or his gun, he 
thought deeply, and it came to him that his soul 



6 THE MAKING OF 

had not found freedom. There was still the 
church, ruling the small community with the fierce 
bigotry into which the American pioneers had 
turned their hard-won freedom from Catholicism. 
There were certain forms, such as baptism, that 
must be observed, certain tithes that must be 
paid, an iron creed that must be professed. At 
night before the fire he discussed these things with 
his wife Margaret. 

*^A free man obeys nothing but his own con- 
science,'' Andrew decided at last. And when a 
traveler, staying overnight, told of the Friends' 
community on Huwarra Creek, Andrew and Mar- 
garet left the place they had built and set out into 
the wilderness of North Carolina. 

The early groups of Friends in America were 
perhaps the best compromise between individual- 
ism and commmiity needs that man has ever 
reached. Men and women were equal members of 
the Society; personal conscience was the only law- 
giver, and the worship of God had been freed of 
all creed and ritual. In this environment Andrew 
Hoover and his wife found peace, and in it they 
reared their thirteen children. 

In the prime of his manhood their son John be- 
came restless. Beyond the forests, toward the 
west, an unpeopled continent called to the pioneer 
spirit. Word came that the central government 
of the United States had thro^Ti open to settle- 



HERBERT HOOVER 7 

ment the lands of the Western Reserve, beyond the 
Ohio River. 

John and his seven brothers sold their houses 
and lands, loaded goods and food on wagons, said 
good-by to all they had known, and set out toward 
the wild West. Two of the brothers, on horses, 
herded the cattle that followed the wagons ; John 
rode ahead, a rifle across the saddle pommel, and 
Jesse, his eleven-year-old son, proudly drove one 
of the teams. Thus they journeyed through the 
forests, crossed the mountains of Virginia, and 
came down to the plains of the Ohio Valley. 

They made their last camp in Miami County, 
Ohio, not far from a log cabin on Stillwater Creek, 
where a little girl named Rebecca Yount lay awake 
at night, hearing the snuffling and snarling of pan- 
thers that scratched at the log walls of the pig-pen. 
Nine years later, when she was eighteen, this girl 
married Jesse Hoover, and it was she who was des- 
tined one day to hold her great-grandson Herbert 
Hoover in her lap and console him with cookies 
because the big boys had gone hunting without 
him. 

Rebecca, girl and woman, was remarkable for an 
indomitable strength of purpose, a great capacity 
for work, and an extraordinary executive ability. 
She bore and reared to manhood and womanhood 
nine children, and she adopted and mothered nine- 
teen more. 



8 THE MAKING OF 

She was a noted housekeeper of Miami County ; 
her cured meats, homespun linens, and patchwork 
quilts were famous in the country-side. Nothing 
was wasted in her hands. In the autumn she tried 
out the year's supply of lard; she made sausages, 
head-cheese and pickled pig's-feet; she made her 
soap by leaching wood-ashes and boiling the lye 
with waste scraps of fat. When her carefully 
turned and made-over gowns were past use they 
were cut down and made dainty with fresh ker- 
chiefs for the girls ; when no one could longer wear 
them the larger pieces were used for patchwork 
quilts, the rest was cut into strips, sewed together, 
and wound into balls during the winter evenings. 
Her loom transformed them into serviceable rugs. 

Nor did her duties end with her own household 
and the care of her twenty-eight children. She 
was a Friend, a member of the Society, and she 
felt the responsibility of that citizenship. Her 
opinions were a force not only in the community 
but in the state. For many years she was an 
elder; at Yearly Meeting she addressed the As- 
sembly, and the entire ministry of the West was 
profoundly influenced by her. 

At the age of ninety-four she still kept herself 
informed in national politics, saying: ^^As long 
as I live under the government of our country I 
tliink it right that I should know what that govern- 
ment is doing, and that I should form my opinions 



HERBERT HOOVER 9 

upon it, with Grod's help, and be ready to express 
them. ' ^ 

This was the woman who at the age of fifty-three 
counseled her husband to leave their lifelong home 
and go farther west, in order to provide for the 
future of their children and grandchildren in a new 
country. Free land in Ohio was becoming hard to 
find. The original homesteads were not large 
enough for the whole family, and Mary Davis 
Hoover, the wife of Rebecca's son Eli, wished her 
children to have farms of their own. Mary was 
not strong ; she feared she had not much longer to 
live, and her flushed cheeks grew redder with ex- 
citement while she urged her husband to make 
haste in finding land for the three boys. 

So Eli and two of his brothers set out for the 
West. When they returned, reporting that in 
Iowa there were thousands of acres of good land 
open to homesteading, and that it was bare prairie, 
unencumbered with the heart-breaking heavy 
forests whose destruction cost so much labor and 
time, Rebecca and her husband were persuaded 
that it was best to move. 

The next spring they left Miami County, the 
only home they remembered, and went out to the 
prairies. Eli and his brothers went with them, but 
Rebecca took Mary's ^ve children as her own. 
Mary had died in the winter; she was not to see 
the land she had wanted for her boys. Had she 



10 THE MAKING OF 

lived, Herbert Hoover's father might have been 
a farmer, instead of a blacksmith who later left his 
forge and became a dealer in farm machinery. 

For Jesse, the middle one of Marj^'s sons, was 
more interested in farm tools than in using them. 
His grandfather and uncles staked out their home- 
steads on the plains of central Iowa, midway be- 
tween the Iowa and Cedar rivers, and their houses, 
clustered around the meeting-house, made the little 
town of West Branch, named in memory of the 
home town left behind in Ohio. Jesse's brothers 
ranged far over the rolling miles of wild grass, 
where deer browsed and whirring multitudes of 
prairie-chickens fed, but Jesse liked best to play 
in the farm tool-shed. 

On rainy Seventh-Day afternaons he watched 
Uncle Benajah heating a plowshare in glowing 
coals, sharpening it with shrewd blows, and plung- 
ing it, hissing, into the tempering water. Unper- 
ceived by Grandmother Eebecca, he carried to the 
meeting-house on First-Day morning a few nails 
or a home-made hinge, hidden in his pocket, and 
touched them now and then during the long, rever- 
ent silences in which a small boy's dangling legs 
grew weary. 

On the porch of the meeting-house he tirst met 
the brown-haired, gray-eyed little girl Huldah 
Randall Minthorn. Her mother had brought her 
by stage from Detroit, with her six brothers and 



i 



HERBERT HOOVER 11 

sisters ; the father was following more slowly, with 
two beautiful Percheron horses. Huldah told 
Jesse at once about the horses ; they had come with 
the family all the way from Toronto, Canada, and 
every one on the boat had admired them. Their 
legs were as huge as trees, she said, and their skins 
were soft and shiny like silk. 

Even then there was a beauty and a grace about 
the little Huldah Minthom. They were a legacy 
from that William Minthorn who had sailed from 
England in 1725, and who, with his wife, had died 
on the long, stormy voyage, leaving his four small 
sons to land alone on the coast of America. Amid 
the forests of Connecticut, through the hardships 
of pioneer times and the Indian wars, these boys 
and their son's sons had never lost a love of beauty 
and of learning. The third William Minthorn had 
been a college student in Hartford. His grandson, 
Huldah 's father, carried in his saddle-bags across 
Canada, the Great Lakes, Michigan, Indiana and 
Illinois, down into Iowa, his few cherished books. 

Mary Wesley Minthorn, Huldah 's mother, was 
a tiny, bright-eyed woman whose quick smile 
warred with her smoothly banded hair and Quaker 
bonnet. In her soul she secretly fought with a 
passion for color, especially purple. Her gowns 
were gray or sober brown, with a white kerchief 
neatly folded across the breast ; her bonnets were 
gray, tied with strings of white lawn, and she 



12 THE MAKING OF 

turned her thoughts away from ribbons. But 
woven coverlets were a snare to her. Her skill 
with the loom was a housewifely talent, not blame- 
worthy, but in her own conscience she sometimes 
felt that she took too great delight in it, and in the 
making of designs for the weaving. She devised 
them herself, drawing them accurately to scale; 
she colored them, feeling pleasure in each brush- 
stroke, and she never wove two coverlets alike. 
All her love of beauty went into those drawings, 
into the dyeing of bright-colored hanks of thread, 
and into the hours when she sat before her loom, 
watching the small patterns grow large beneath 
her flying fingers. She sometimes feared that 
these coverlets were a sinful indulgence, but she 
never quite felt that she must give them up. 

There was a fine, strong spirit in her that rose 
to meet and conquer life. Her husband had 
hardly arrived with the Percheron horses, staked 
out his homestead, and built a shelter for his 
family, when he died. She was left with seven 
young children, a hundred and sixty acres of un- 
broken prairie, and the team. On the morning 
when her husband lay in his coffin she stood beside 
it ill her Quaker bonnet and shawl, her hands 
folded on her breast, and made a vow. 

< ' I will take care of the children, ' ' she said. ' ' I 
will feed them and clothe them and bring them up 
to be God-fearing men and women. And every 



HERBERT HOOVER 13 

one of them shall have a "university education." 
She did these things, alone. Such ' neighborly 
help as she was forced to accept in the heavy field 
work she scrupulously repaid. For seventeen 
years she managed the farm and the household; 
she and her children hoed, cooked, scrubbed, saved, 
and prayed. At the end of that time each of her 
children had received the best of schooling, her 
two sons had graduated with honors from Iowa 
State University, and her daughter Huldah, after 
two years in a private school and one term in the 
university, was happily married to Jesse Hoover.^ 
The village remembered that autumn because 
it was the one in which the first threshing-machine 
appeared in that part of Iowa. It was a crude, 
stationary affair, whose wheels were driven by 
two horses walking slowly in an endless circle. 
But it was a marvel to the farmers, who had never 
seen anything like it. It had been shipped in 
sections from the East and no one was able to 
put it together until Jesse Hoover saw it. He 
studied its parts and, carefully assembled then., 
and the machine worked. 

There was significance in the incident of the 
threshing-machine; it marked the passing of a 
period in American history. The frontier had 
gone ; agriculture was established ; the era of the 
machine had come. The Civil War was lately 

1 Iowa City, March 12, 1870. 



14 THE MAKING OF 

ended; manufacturing was securely enthroned in 
the North, and modern industry was well started 
on that course destined inevitably to lead to the 
growth of great cities and corporations, and tre- 
mendous concentration of wealth and power. 

Four years later, in a small brown cottage near 
Jesse Hoover's blacksmith shop, Herbert Clark 
Hoover was bom.^ His life began at the end of 
one pioneer age and the beginning of another. 

The spirit of five generations of American pio- 
neers was his spirit; the blood of Andrew Hoover, 
of John Hoover, of Rebecca Yount, of William 
Minthorn and Mary Wesley was in his veins. 
Their lives had gone to the making of America; 
his life was to be part of the future. 

A Letter from Herbert Hoover's Aunt 

January 21, 1920. 
Dear Daughter : 

Thy letter received, and I will tell the things I know, 
for as thee says the story should be the truth. I well 
remember the day Herbert was born. I had spent a day 
with Huldah, visiting and sewing. Thee was with me, 
Jesse and Huldah always made much of thee, because 
thee represented the little girl they hoped soon to have. 

Next morning early, Jesse came and tapped on my 
window and said, "Well, we have another General Grant 
at our house.- Huldah would like to see thee." So 
we went, thee and I. 

1 August 10, 1874. 

2 U. S. Grant was then President of the United States. 



HERBERT HOOVER 15 

They then lived in a little house by the blacksmith\ 
shop. It was a tiny house, but always so clean and neat, ^ 
for Huldah was a nice housekeeper and kept house nice, \ 
whether it was small or large. It was, however, the 1 
kind of good housekeeping that does not destroy the 
family. Children always had a good time there. There 
was a hobby horse, and balls and tops, but there was a 
place for them when they were not in use. With Huldah, | 
things were always finished. I can see that bureau J 
drawer now, with ever^^hing ready for the coming 
event, all made by hand, for none of us had a sewing 
machine in those days. 

Herbert was a sweet baby that first day, round and 
plump, and looked about very cordial at everybody. / 



THE MAKING OF 
HERBERT HOOVER 

CHAPTER I 

HIS earliest impression was of sunshine, green 
leaves, and his mother's voice talking to 
God. This was in the sitting-room, after break- 
fast. He and his brother Tad climbed into 
chairs and sat with dangling legs while his father 
read in a solemn voice from the large black Bible. 
His mother held Sister May on her lap. Then 
they all knelt down on the rag carpet with their 
elbows on the chair seats, and after a little silence 
his mother began to speak. 

He did not clearly understand what she said, but 
the sound of her voice was beautiful. He looked 
between his fingers and saw the morning sunshine 
on the row of plants in the window. It lay in a 
black-barred oblong on the floor. A corner of it 
reached across the folds of his mother's gray dress 
and touched her hair, and her hair shone. The 
room was very still. This stillness, the sunshine 
on the green leaves, and the low humming of the 
tea-kettle on the kitchen stove, seemed part of the 

17 



18 THE MAKING OF 

Presence to which his mother spoke. The Pres- 
ence itself filled the room with a strange quiet 
friendliness. 

He wriggled a little, but noiselessly, and looked 
severely to see if Sister May was keeping still. 
Then, with a little bustle of moving chairs, they 
all rose. His father put on his hat and coat to go 
to the store, and his mother began gathering up 
the breakfast dishes. 

' ' Run and play, Bertie, ' ' she said. ' ' But do not 
get thy feet wet.'' She wrapped a muffler around 
his throat and buttoned his coat. Then she kissed 
him. Her hands were swift and firm, but gentle, 
and there was a smile in her eyes. He squirmed 
away quickly, because he was in a hurry to get 
outdoors with his sled. 

The house stood in a big yard. In front of it 
was a row of six large maple-trees whose trunks 
made gray shadows on the snow. On the other 
side of the road not far away was the little brown 
house where he had lived when a baby, and beyond 
it smoke was curling up from the blacksmith shop 
that once had been his father's. 

There was a sudden jangle of sleigh-bells, and 
Uncle John Minthom's sleigh flashed past, drawn 
by two plunging, steaming horses. The boy had 
an instant's vision of Dr. John, half standing, 
his weight on the taut reins in one hand, a whip m 
the other, his teeth showing in a smile. Then he 



HERBERT HOOVER 19 

was gone, in a flurry of snow. Dr. John^s horses 
were wild, half -broken things; he drove like the 
wind, and the sleigh was not one to which small 
boys could fasten their sleds. 

Bertie dragged his sled along the path by the 
kitchen door, under the eaves fringed with icicles. 
A long one hung close to his mittened hand, but 
Mother had forbidden him to eat icicles. Behind 
the house was the garden, where the snow humped 
over buried potato-vines and lay in a drift beside 
the grape-arbor. The bare brown vines were 
coated with ice, and made a crackling sound when 
he kicked a post. The house was at the foot of 
Chamber *s Hill; tugging the sled, he trudged up 
the slope, his short legs plunging through the 
drifts. 

The hill was alive with swooping sleds, with 
shouts, laughter, hoys rolling in the snow, little 
girls squealing with excitement. He was now in 
his own world, surrounded by innumerable cross 
currents of likes and dislikes, fears and admira- 
tions. George and Mamie Coombs were there; 
Ettie and Willie and Eddie Smith; Harriette, 
Blanche, and Theodore Miles, and many others. 
Among them he saw enemies and allies — the big 
boy who had rubbed his face with snow, Tad ^ his 
own big brother, who had valiantly defended him, 

1 Theodore Jesse Hoover, three and a half years older than Her- 
bert Hoover, now head of the mining department of Stanford Uni- 
versity. 



20 THE MAKING OF 

and the tattle-tale who had rushed home to tell 
about the fight. They shouted to him, he shouted 
back, and continued his way up the hill, imperturb- 
able, self-contained, and serious. His purpose 
was to reach the top and slide do^\m without delay. 
He stopped, panting, at the summit. The long, 
hard-packed track wound below him, past Joseph 
Cook's leafless orchard, down the breathless drop 
by the Cottonwood trees, across the dangerous lane 
where teams might be met, and out on the curve 
that ended at the bridge. He drew up his sled 
to make the plunge, and paused. Willie Smith 
stood before him, holding the rope of a slim new 
sled, a sled striped with red paint, shining with 
varnish, elegantly formed and shod Avith steel 
runners. 

-I got a new sled," said Willie. Bertie ap- 
proached and looked at it thoughtfully. 

*^My father made mine,'' he announced at last 
with satisfaction. 

'^Mine 's got steel runners," said Willie. 

'^It 's a good sled," said Bertie, and prepared 

to slide. 

'^You haven't got steel runners," Willie con- 
tinued. . 

^^No," said Bertie. ^^Mine are iron. My 
father used to be a blacksmith when I was little." 

''Mine 's the best sled," Willie insisted. ''I 'U 
trade a ride." 



HERBERT HOOVER 21 

**No/' said Bertie. ^^I like my sled.'' 

* ^ I would 11 't trade mine for two of it, ' ' said 
Willie. 

' ^ There are n 't two of it, ' ' Bertie remarked. ^ ^ I 
got the only one like it in the world." 

There was a pause. ^'What '11 you give me if 
I '11 trade!" asked Willie. 

^^What does thee want to trade for! Thee has 
a good sled," said Bertie. 

His mother, coming to the doorway at dinner- 
time, saw her small son in the distance, pulling a 
smaller cousin homeward on a bright new sled. 
She waited under the maples till the boy reached 
her. 

^* Where did thee get the new sled, Bertie?" 

'^I traded for it," said Bertie, smiling back at 
her. ^'Willie wanted to trade. Willie likes my 
old sled better. Oh, Mother, look, it 's got real 
steel runners!" 

They went up the path together, and the friend- 
liness of the house shut them all in once more. 
The house was like a small circle of security and 
warmth, to which one would always return. The 
beginning and end of all adventuring was there, in 
that sensation of serene well-being that one felt 
without thinking of it. 

There was no place in that house where a child 
was not free to go and to be happy. On stormy 
afternoons what romps there were! Then the 



22 THE MAKING OF 

cousins would come to play, and there was racing 
up and down the stairs, and noise, and laughter, 
hide- 'n '-go-seek in the closets and behind Mother's 
skirts where she sat demurely sewing; rummaging 
in the cooky jar, and bringing up of whole pans of 
apples from the cellar, and popping of corn in the 
kitchen. 

V The heart of it all was his mother. She was 
pthere as the sunshine was there, or the air, a 
part of his solid, unalterable world. He did not 
imagine any place or situation where she would 
not be. She was more than the mother who 
bathed and dressed and soothed him; she was the 
order, the serenity, and the goodness upon which 
life was built. And with her, like a radiance, like 
an emanation from her smile, from her slim hands, 
from the sheen on her brown hair and the fresh- 
ness of her gowns, was Christ. v^^ 
(she told him of the Child in Bethlehem) she told 
hin(^of the Good Shepherd who maketh one to lie 
down in green pastures) who leadeth beside still 
waters; she told hinCof the Healer at whose touch 
the sick were made whole and the blind were given 
sight ; and she told him of the Sacrifice on Calvary^j 
These remained in his mind as characters moving 
ill that dim realm of the past, of the future, of all 
that existed beyond the circle of his life. With 
them were Elijah and the bears, Elisha and the 
ficrv chariot, Solomon, and David, and Noah. But 



HERBERT HOOVER 23 

there was another Christ, the One to whom his 
mother talked, the One who was part of her gentle- 
ness and of her service for every one. It was He 
who deepened her smile and made a light in her 
eyes. This, too, was a fact like the sunshine ; one 
did not think about it, one simply lived in it. 

On First Days, bathed and immaculately 
dressed, he and Tad walked sedately to the meet- 
ing-house, where God was. They did not like to 
go there ; they would have preferred wearing their 
everyday clothes and playing in Uncle Laban's 
hay-scented barn, or out on the hillsides with their 
cousins. But that was the way the world was 
made ; on First Days one went with all the village 
to God's house. 

The meeting-house stood by itself in large 
grounds. Beside it was the graveyard where 
Great-grandfather Jesse Hoover and Grandfather 
Theodore Minthorn lay; it was shivery and yet 
fascinating to think of that. Down the long tree- 
shaded street teams came slowly ; there was a quiet 
little eddy of people where the buggies stopped; 
uncles and aunts and cousins climbed out and 
waited while the horses were tied in the long 
sheds behind the meeting-house. There was 
Grandfather Eli, with Great-Uncle William and 
Uncle Benjamin Miles; there was Grandmother 
Minthorn, a figure like a sparrow in the gray 
bonnet and shawl, beside Uncle Penn. jAll the 



24 THE MAKING OF 

"^ cousins from the country were there. What news 
there was to tell and to hear ! (But this was First 
Day; children should be seen and not heard. 
Silence must be kept like a lock on eager lips. 
Even grown-ups spoke little, in subdued tonesN 

^'I am glad to see thee, Huldah.^' ^ 

^^How is thee, Mother!" 

''God's goodness is about me always.'' 

His mother, holding Sister May by the hand, 
went with Grandmother through the women's 
door. But he was a man, and entered the dim 
stillness of the meeting-house through the men's 
door with Tad and their father. Quickly he 
climbed on a bench, and looking over the high 
partition he saw the rows of women's bonnets, 
bent forward a little, hiding their faces. He saw 
his mother quietly taking her place with the 
others, and before she should observe his head 
above the partition he slid down beside Tad, and 
could see her no longer. 

(^He sat on a high, hard bench, and looked at his 
great-uncle John Y., who sat in a high place among 
the elders.^ They were solemn men with long 
beards, ranged in four rows at the end of the room, 
one row above another, so that all their faces 
looked gravely dowTi upon him. And he thought 
of God as a grave Being with a beard, who never 

iJuhn Y Hoover occupied a seat next but one to the head of 
the meeting. Later he became the regular pastor of the Friends 
Church at West Branch, 



HERBERT HOOVER 25 

smiled^ Then the shuffling of feet ended, and 
silence filled the placep 

The silence was like a weight. It grew slowly- 
heavier ; it became burdensome ; it became intoler- 
able. He turned his head, a little by a little, and 
looked at the intent, serious faces about him. 
He looked at the ceiling. He looked at the cracks 
in the wall. His legs began to ache. Suddenly, 
to his surprise, they straightened vigorously and 
his boots struck the bench before him with a loud 
noise. The gentle reproach in his father's eyes 
made him ashamed. He sat up straight. The 
silence continued. 

Then he heard his mother's voice. He could not 
see her because of the high partition between the 
women and the men, but he saw the elders' faces 
turned gravely toward the point beyond it, where 
she was. Her voice, low and vibrant, was like 
the spirit of her, without her body. It came 
across the partition to him, and spoke of Christ. 
It said that He was all-merciful and that His love 
was about them always ; it said that as they served 
and loved one another, so they served and loved 
Him, and that to live in Christ was a joy beyond 
telling and a peace beyond understanding. 

Her voice ceased, and there was silence again. 
It continued forever, through an eternity in which 
an infinite boredom descended upon his spirit. 
His body ceased to ache. His mind became numb. 






26 THE MAKING OF 

He no longer saw with interest the slow going to 
sleep of old Benjamin Winters. His eyes no 
longer followed up and down the cracks in the 
wall. He simply sat there. f| 

When at last this stupor ended, when he could 
slide stiffly down from the bench and follow his 
father out into the world of sound and movement, 
he was like a prisoner released. |{ 

Under the trees in front of the meeting-house 
families were reassembling, in an atmosphere of 
quietly happy relaxation. There were smiles, 
nods, low-voiced talk of the service and of weather 
and crops. His father took the soft, sleepy May 
from Grandmother ^s arms and hoisted her upon 
one shoulder. Mother 's face was bright ; he knew 
without hearing the talk of it how wonderfully 
she had been moved by the Spirit. He hastened 
to meet his boy cousins, and heard that George 
had got a pet raccoon and had been promised a 
gun for hunting rabbits. The boys stood together, 
talking soberly about it, their eyes shining. Long- 
ing to run, to jump, to shout in the joy of their 
release from meeting, they were held motionless 
bv the eyes of the community upon them. 

He had his duties; there was tlie wood-box to 
be filled, the garden to be weeded in summer, er- 
rands to be run. Playthings must be put away, 
face and hands must be washed ; clothes must be 
kept clean and whole. He must tell the truth 



HERBERT HOOVER 27 

always, and be obedient, and always help any one 
whenever he could. But these things were to be 
done because doing them made happiness ; it made 
a small glow of happiness for him who did them, 
and a large, vague happiness somewhere in 
heaven. 

When his tasks were done he could always play ; 
he could run and jump and shout as much as he 
liked. There was the hill to slide upon in winter, 
and in the spring when sap was running boys could 
make maple sugar from the trees on it. The big- 
ger boys bored holes in the south side of the tree 
trunks, hung pails to catch the dripping sap, built 
a fire. Bertie ran up and down, helping to empty 
the pails, stirring the boiling syrup, and carrying 
wood. At last they all fell to with spoons and ate 
the hot sugar from the kettle. Then there was 
the brook where one went fishing with a crooked 
stick for a pole and angleworms on the hook, and 
caught sometimes a *' mud-cat" five inches long. 
There was Uncle Laban's barn, where the dusty 
sunlight fell through the cracks on mounds of hay, 
and one could do great daring jumps from rafters, 
while all the little girl cousins screamed and cov- 
ered their eyes. Best of all, perhaps, there vas 
Father's store. 

The big building and the large dusty yard 
beside it, filled with tools and farm machinery, 
were fascinating to a curious small boy. Father 



28 THE MAKING OF 

was never too busy to explain the new machines, 
to show what made an engine go, and, how wheels 
and endless belts transmitted power.C^Most excit- 
ing of all, Father had bought and erected a great 
new invention, the sensation of a summer— a 
machine that put barbs on fence wire. 

People came for miles to see it, and to talk about 
its product. Smftly, with little jerks, it pulled 
into its mysterioois recesses the shining lengths of 
smooth wire unrolling from a big spool, and at the 
other side the wire came out with sharp prongs 
wrapped about it at intervals. Farmers looked at 
it, and shook their heads in wonder. The speed 
of modem progress amazed them. Here was a 
machine that made, in a few hours, as much fenc- 
ing as men could build with logs or field stones in 
weeks of labor. Simply set posts, stretch this 
wire on them, and the farm was fenced. 

More conservative men were opposed to these 
newfangled inventions; they said that when the 
wire rusted the prongs would work loose. They 
were right. Two-strand barbed wire was yet 
undreamed of ; Jesse Hoover, desirous of improv- 
ing the product of his little factory, hit on the 
idea of covering the wire with tar to delay its 
rusting. So in the yard a fire was kept burning 
beneath a huge kettle of tar, and when a reel was 
filled it was dipped into the kettle. There were 
no dull moments there for Bertie. 



HERBERT HOOVER 29 

One day while he stood beside the kettle a ques- 
tion suddenly occurred to him. What would hap- 
pen if a blazing stick were put into the tar? Was 
tar like water? Would it put out fire? If it did 
not put out fire, what would it do? None of his 
investigations into the surprising nature of things 
had given him any information by which to decide 
the question. Tar was unknown to him; it might 
do anything. 

He looked about for some one to solve the prob- 
lem. No one was in sight. His father was in the 
store; the hired man had disappeared. He was 
left to his own resources. The black mass in the 
kettle moved turgidly, queer colors quivered on its 
surface; it was enigmatic, challenging. What 
would it do ? He squatted beside the fire-box and 
pulled out a long flaming stick. He rose. For an 
instant a sensation like fear held his hand ; it was 
the sensation of a pioneer confronting the immens- 
ity of the unknown. Then, with a courageous ges- 
ture, he thrust the brand into the kettle. 

The kettle, too, held its breath for an instant. 
Then, slow, implacable and monstrous, a red flame j 
rose like a tower. Swiftly, as by magic, the sky j 
was overspread with a black, thick smoke. He / 
choked, he heard shouts, and turning wildly to run 
he collided with a leaping figure. The rest was 
delirium. 

He saw men running with ladders and pails. 



30 THE MAKING OF 

He saw the shingled roof of the store curling, and 
little red flames running along the eaves. A line 
of men reached from the store to the town pump, 
and an endless stream of half -filled pails leaped 
from hand to hand. He had a glimpse of his 
father, blackened with smoke, on the roof, beating 
at the flames with a wet sack. He longed to help, 
but he did not know what to do; and then his 
mother came, white but calm, and took him away. 
He went with her without protest. 

That night at the supper-table he heard his 
father tell how the store, and perhaps the town, 
had been saved. The fire, it was thought, had 
been caused by the unwatched kettle of tar, which 
must have boiled over. Bertie said nothing. If 
he had been asked, he would have told what he 
had done, but no one asked him. He sat 
unnoticed, eating silently. He was sorry and ter- 
rified, yet he was glad. It was such a strange feel- 
ing that when he had gone to bed he lay awake for 
a long time, hearing the katydid in the wild crab- 
apple tree outside his window. He had done a 
frightening thing; the shock of it was still in his 
nerves and the crime of it on his conscience, but 
he had not meant to do wrong. He had been inno- 
cently experimenting, and the result was not 
entirely disheartening. 

*' Anyway, I found out what it would do,'' he 
thought. ^'I found it out all by myself.'' He 



HERBERT HOOVER 31 

wondered if he would be punished if he told. He 
thought not. But he decided that it was best to 
keep his own counsel in the matter. And for forty 
years he did so.'^ 

f^One First Day, in meeting, after the accustomed 
silence had settled down, a man rose and began 
to speak. He was a stranger, newly arrived from 
the East, and all the faces turned toward him. 
His eyes were black and piercing, his cheeks were 
sunken, and his voice shook every one. He spoke 
of sin and of hell where the worm never dies ; he 
said that his hearers were lost in the ways of 
Satan and that God called on them to repent while 
there was yet time. His eyes were full of a ter- 
rible earnestness and his face was white and set, 
hke those of the men who had put out the tar fire. 

When he had finished he wiped his forehead with 
his hand and was silent a moment. Then he said, 
^^God moves me to say that. Friends willing, I 
shall hold a series of meetings, beginning to-mor- 
row. ' ' Then he sat down?} 

When the man rose and* went out they all began 
talking earnestly together and with the women. 
The children, wide-eyed and quiet, stood close to 
their parents, listening and trying to understand 
what had happened. 

QsFothing was the same after that. On the 
streets and at home no one talked of anything but 
the stranger and his message^Tl In Father's store 



32 THE MAKING OF 

the farmers no longer came stamping in, smiling, 
as they used to. (They stood in groups and 
argued, with serious faces, about new things — 
** conviction of sin'' and "^ ^ sanctification. ' H 
Father's eyes were worried, and far into the nighy 
he and Mother talked and prayed together. 
(Every night David Updegraff spoke in the meet- 
ing-house. He spoke of sin and the wrath of God ; 
he said that the hearts of men were desperately 
wicked and their feet laid hold on hell, and he 
beg^d the people to follow in the way of salva- 
tionT) Women sobbed, and men hid their faces. 

Tne zest was gone from play. On the street 
corners groups of boys stood talking soberly. It 
was said that the old ways of worshiping God were 
wrong. Friend UpdegrafP had been sent by God 
to tell the people this. He said that the old ways 
were lifeless forms and that the true Spirit was no 
longer in them. Families were divided by this 
question; one boy's grandmother was shut in her 
room weeping and praying day and night because 
her daughter believed the stranger; another's 
grown-up brother had left home because of his 
father's anger. Wives spent nights on their 
knees praying that their husbands might see the 
light and be saved. It seemed that the solid 
foundations of the village were breaking up. 

But home remained a secure place of refuge. 
Nothing could destroy that. Mother was still 



HERBERT HOOVER 33 

gentle. Father was still kind. And though they 
were more grave and their prayers were longer 
and more earnest, one still felt a steady faith that 
all was well. 

Through it all, home emerged unshaken, and 
somehow with a deeper, more beautiful meaning. 
The stranger had brought joy to Mother ; she had 
found a new spiritual knowledge. She was sanc- 
tified and would never sin again. These things 
were beyond a small boy's understanding, but to 
his mother they meant a living nearness to God 
that made her life more full of service for others, 
and it was through her that he saw life. There 
were many ways of worshiping God, it seemed, 
and people thought of Him in many different ways. 
But through all the confusion his mother remained 
a Christian, and unchanged. 

(^The meeting-house was changed. The partition 
between men and women was taken away, and an 
organ was brought in. Hymns were sung now 
during the services, there was a minister who 
stood behind a pulpit and preached, and First Day 
had a new name; it was called Sunday. There 
were names for all the other days, too, and many 
of the boys no longer said *'thee" but ^^you^' 
instead. J The new words had a strange sound on 
the tongue, so that it was fun to say them./^But 
it was not kind to use them before the older pebple 
who had left the meeting-house and built a small 



34 THE MAKING OF 

one of their own, with the partition dividing it, 
where they could worship in the way they had 
always knowm. So Bertie learned another lan- 
guage than the '^ plain speech" of his fathers— 
the new one brought by David Updegraff^ 
^ (^Everything outside his home was changing, like 
an eddy around a safe rock. Uncle Laban and 
' Aunt Agues and the pla^Tnate cousins had gone 
away to a place called Indian Territory. Grand- 
father Eli had come back from Hardin County and 
started a pump-factory."^ The pump was another 
jingenious invention making life almost too easy 
for farmers. Uncle Benajah had one, and rapidly 
others appeared everywhere, and all the cattle 
learned to pump their own drinking-water^ The 
cows stood on a wooden platform that slowly sunk 
under their weight and the water poured into a 
trough. When they had drunk it they walked 
away and the platform rose again and stood ready 
for the next cow^ 

Grandfather ^factory was an interesting place 
of carpenters' benches and forges, where six or 
seven farmers' sons, not contented to stay on the 
old homesteads, worked under Grandfather's 
direction. It was somewhat like a grown-up 
school, and somewhat like Father's store. Bertie 
played about among the men while they worked 
and brought them dippers of water from the pail 
that stood among heaps of shavings in a corner. 



HERBERT HOOVER 35 

They were big, jolly men who called one another 
by their first names, had friendly wrestling- 
matches at noon and took great pride in the pumps 
they made. 

(^ They made Bertie a hatchet to play with, and 
after he had tried it on sticks and found that it 
would not cut iron he laid his forefinger on a block 
and chopped ^t. He yelled in amazement and 
consternation.^ Red blood ran out of his finger, 
over the chopping-block and the men's clothes. 
It would not stop running. No one could stop it. 

Qrrandfather caught him up like a baby and ran 
to Dr. John's office. 

^'Sit still," Uncle John said sternly. And he 
sat still, shaken by frightened sobs, while Uncle 
John sewed the finger with a needle and thread 
and tied it up in a bundle of bandages^ ^' Young 
man, thee almost cut thy finger off, ^ ' Uncle John 
said. ^ ^But thee is a brave boy. Here is a penny. 
Go spend it for sweets, but do not play with 
hatchets any more." An angry scar remained 
always on his finger to remind him of those words. 
But he did play with hatchets, for now he knew 
their dangerous nature and how to manage them. 
Isfle had been all winter in school and was tri- 
umphantly through the primer class when in the 
spring Uncle Laban reappeared, and Bertie was 
told that he was to visit his cousins in Indian Ter- 
ritoryTj Then he learned how large the world is. 



36 THE MAKING OF 







\ 



They rode for days on a railway train, seeing 
fields and forests and to\vns going past the win- 
dows ; then they rode on a stage-coach through an 
exciting country of w^ooded hills, and at last they 
arrived at a big stone house beside the road and * 
1 there Avere Aunt Agnes and Blanche and Har- 
l.riette and Theodore Miles, just as they had been 
\in West Branch. It w^as all a very long w^ay from 
' Father and Mother. However, he manfully con- 
cealed the lonesomeness inside hiuL^ 

The cousins w^ere very much excited. They 
laughed a great deal, and he did not know the 
joke. But he knew they were concealing some- 
thing. They show^ed him the dogs, and the cat 
and kittens, and the brook w^here they waded. 
Then they led him suddenly around the corner of 
Uncle Laban's office and there by an oak-tree stood 
a live Indian. 

He w^as a tall, fearsome-looking man with a 
leather-colored skin. A red-and-orange blanket 
concealed his arms, and long feathers stood up 
above his fierce black eyes and made an angry- 
looking ruff down his back. The shock of such an 
apparition halted Bertie with a jerk. He heard 
his heart thumping. This must be Chief Joseph, 
the terrible Indian w^ho long before, at a lecture 
in West Branch, had fired guns until Tad had 
been brought home yelling with fright. Tad had 



HERBEET HOOVER 37 

been saved ; Father had been there to rescue him. 
But there was no one to rescue Bertie now. The 
cousins had retreated behind him, leaving him un- 
supported, and the Indian fixed him with an awful 
gaze. He stood his ground a moment, gulped, 
and then advanced; ^'How do you dof he quav- 
ered politely. 

The cousins uttered a disappointed yell that 
was music in his ears, but he gave no sign. He 
stood with his legs a little apart, his hands in his 
trousers pockets, and gazed his fill at the Indian. 
'^What kind of a bird did those feathers grow 
on?" he inquired at length. The Indian merely 
grunted, but half an hour later he gave him a strip 
of soft leather cunningly embroidered with beads. 

He stayed a long time at Uncle Laban's. The 
rolling prairie land and the long tree-shaded 
street of West Branch became like a dream; he 
lived now in a world of trees and hills, of Indian 
wickiups, stolid squaws, brown bright-eyed 
papooses carried in beaded baskets, and curious 
playthings. There were strange rocks of all 
kinds along the brooks and on the hills. There 
was one called flint, that made arrow-heads, and a 
gritty one called sandstone, and one called keel 
that made marks like chalk. There were curious 
curled ones like stone snails, and others that 
sparkled, and others that were the size and shape 



38 THE MAKING OF 

of iron screws. He wondered about those rocks ; 
no one could tell him where they came from or 
why they were so strange. 

He had a good time playing with his cousins and 
when at dark the lonely feeling ached inside 
him he concealed it as much as possible. He knew 
his father and mother were waiting for him, 
unchanged; he would go back to them some day. 
At last the day came ; the stage was waiting. He 
said good-by to all the cousins, he was kissed by 
Aunt Agnes, Uncle Laban went into the house to 
bring out his boxes. Uncle Laban reappeared in 
the doorway, exclaiming: 

''Bertie, what has thee in those boxes I I can 
hardly lift them.'^ 

His cherished rocks were in the boxes. For 
days he had gone over the collection, comparing, 
selecting, packing. After Aunt Agnes had packed 
his clothes he had taken them out, and substituted 
more rocks. He wanted those rocks. They were 
important. Couldn't Uncle Laban understand 
how important they were! He stood by, help- 
lessly protesting, while the boxes were opened, 
and the rocks were taken out, and things like 
underwear and jackets were put in. 

''Thee has said enough, Bertie. Thee cannot 
carry away all those rocks. It is impossible. 
Thee can have ten, no more. ' ' 

There were unmanly tears in his eyes. He was 



HEEBEET HOOVEE 39 

torn with indecision, bending over those treasured 
stones. But the stage was waiting, and implaca- 
ble authority would not allow delay. Blindly he 
chose, and helpless, borne by irresistible, inscrut- 
able fate, he was torn from his accumulated 
wealth. 

^^They were all such strange rocks!" he 
lamented, once more in the warmth of his mother 's 
sympathy. ''Mother, they were like this — '' and 
he talked about them till sleep overcame him and 
he woke again in his familiar bed and saw the 
garden and the crab-apple tree outside the win- 
dow. 

The maple-trees were flaming red in front of 
the house and all the long street was frisky with 
fallen yellow leaves. There was a crispness in 
the morning air when with books and slates he 
and Tad set out for school. He was in the first 
reader now. The hours passed pleasantly enough 
while he worked sums on his slate or toed the crack 
in the floor at spelling-time. He did not mind 
school ; he adjusted himself to it with equanimity. 
It was part of a world he felt himself increasingly 
able to manage. He had no. conflicts with the 
teachers and held his own with the boys at recess. 
Sometimes, he knew, he would go to the university 
as Uncle John Min thorn and Uncle Penn had done ; 
Father and Mother were always planning for that, 
and he must be diligent in his studies. 



40 THE MAKING OF 

But he rushed out gladly at four o'clock to 
scuffle through the dry leaves on the sidewalk or 
naughtily rattle a stick along a picket-fence. And 
he liked to rake the yard and clear the dead plants 
from the garden, piling up the bonfire his father 
would light after supper to flame in the darkness 
and fill the cold air with the smell of burning 
leaves. Then snow came, and there was coasting 
again on Saturday afternoons, and the prospect 
of Christmas rose once more, after being forgot- 
ten so long. He began to feel the passing of time 
in the slow rotation of the seasons, like a rhythm 
through the stable universe. 

An unexpected holiday broke the routine of 
school earlier than the Christmas holidays.'.. His 
father was in bed with a severe cold and Great- 
uncle Benajah, driving into town one Saturday, 
offered to take the boys home with him. 

^'It will save thee the bother of looking out for 
them while Jesse is sick, Huldah,- he said. ^^We 
can take them for a few days as well as not.'^ 
So, warmly wrapped and admonished to be good 
boys, they crowded upon the wagon seat beside 
Uncle Benajah, tucked the buffalo-robe snugly 
around 4heir legs, and ^gaily waved good-by to 

Mother. J 

It was always fun to visit at Uncle Benajah s. 
There was Rover, the eager rabbit-hunter; there 
was the pet raccoon, that most cleanly of animals, 



HERBERT HOOVER 41 

who could not be coaxed to eat the smallest morsel 
until he had washed it in clear water with his own 
paws, and there were the big bams where one 
could fork hay down to the horses, watch George 
milking the cows, and fill foaming saucers for the 
hungrily waiting cats. In the woodshed a captive 
owl sat ruffling his gray feathers and blinking, 
turning his head quite around to follow the slight- 
est movement. Bertie spent hours persistently 
circling that owl, led by the false hope that the 
bird would twist off its own neck. 

Under the long sheds by the barn Uncle Ben- 
ajah shucked corn, stripping the husks from the 
ears with an iron husking-peg strapped in the 
palm of his hand. When the wheelbarrow was 
filled the boys wheeled it to the granary and 
emptied it on the sliding yellow heap of corn. 
Then they carried in wood, stamping the snow 
from their feet outside the kitchen door and 
dumping their armfuls into the big wood-box 
beside the stove where Great-aunt Ella fried 
doughnuts in a smoking kettle of fat. And the 
visiting nephews must spend some time with 
Great-grandmother Rebecca. 

Great-grandmother Rebecca, eighty years old, 
would not give up her own independent home. 
She lived in the other half of the house, and when 
one called on her one knocked at the door of her 
sitting-room and waited until she said, **Come 



42 THE MAKING OF i 

in. ' ' The door opened ou a small, spotlessly clean 
room. The window was full of geraniums and 
begonias in pots. Great-grandmother, in a white 
cap, with a white kerchief neatly crossed beneath 
her withered chin, sat in a rocking-chair, swaying 
gently back and forth, sewing. Beside the Bible 
on the table at her elbow were neat piles of colored 
pieces cut for patchwork; she took up two of them, 
laid them together, ran her needle in and out with 
little quick movements of her gnarled hands, and 
then spread the patchwork on her knee and 
pressed out the seam with her thumb-nail, looking 
over her spectacles at you. There was an atmos-| 
phere of orderly activity and precision about her. 
^^Hast thee been a good boyl'^ she asked in a 
brisk, kind voice. It was rather awesome to visit 
Great-grandmother, but one felt pleasant after- 
ward. 

In the evenings the boys shelled and popped 
corn in the big kitchen, while Aunt Ella set the 
sponge for bread and Uncle Benajah, wearing his 
spectacles, silently read a newspaper. Then they 
went yawning up the chilly stairs to undress 
quickly and climb into the billowy feather-bed. 
<^A knocking at the front door awoke him. The 
room was quite dark. The knocking was somehow 
terrifying. There were sounds of movements m 
V the house, a door opening, the scratching of a 
' match. Uncle Benajah's voice said, ^' Hello!'' 



HERBERT HOOVER 43 

** Jesse 's taken very bad. I 've come to get] 
the boys. ^'^ ^ 

A glare of lamplight hurt his eyes, while he 
struggled to get into clothes that were all wrong 
and to fasten buttons that he could not find. He 
did not cry. He was too much frightened. Tad 
got his arms into the sleeves of his coat and 
wrapped a muffler anyway around his neck and 
fape. 

[Then they were in a bugg>', flying between a 
wnite earth and a starlit sky, behind galloping 
horses^ But the sky and the fields and the buggy \ 
all seemed to be held still in an icy terror. For 
hours, for ages, forever, the white road ran past 
the wheels and the horses galloped and time stood 
still. There would never be an end to this. 

Then it ended, and he was hurrying up the path 
to a house whose every window was yellow with 
light in the darkness. (^The sitting-room seemed 
crowded with people. When he saw Mother, very 
white and not smiling, but quiet as ever, he knew 
without being told.^ His father was dead?]^ ^he 
was all that was left. 

''The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. 
Blessed be the name of the Lord,'^ Grandmother 
Minthorn said. And his mother, with that still, 
white look on her face, knew something he could r 
only dimly understand, vj'or through the days 1 
that followed when he was not sobbing because he j 



I 



44 THE MAKING OF 

wanted his father he was standing aghast in a 
world in which a father could die© 

Half of his home was gone. His father was 
gone, gone forever, so that he would never see him 
any more. Under the maples, where he had met 
his father coming from the store, in the sitting- 
room where they had sat together, at the table 
where Father had always been in the chair next 
his, there was nothing but emptiness. It was an 
emptiness that was like ^ a presence; one felt it 
there all the time. It was like a cold wind, so 
that he put his arms ai'ound his mother to keep it 
from her ; he talked to her a great deal, so that 
she might not hear the silence. But it was there, 
and he was terrified. For he felt now that noth- 
ing was safe. He felt the precariousness of the 
hold one has on anything. 

This passed, and there was solid ground beneath i 
his feet again. School went on as usual and he \ 
went there every day. He came home to the house ! 
he had always known, and it was home, and ' 
Mother was there. Mother and Brother Tad and '■ 
May and he were together, and Father looked 
down on them from heaven, where he was happy. 
It was not the same as having Father with them, I 
but God knew best. And everything else went on i 
as before, except that the store was sold. 

Mother saved the money for the children's edu 

( ti Jesse Hoover died December 13, 1880 



HERBERT HOOVER 45 

cation.' She said this to Grandmother Minthorn 
one afternoon in the sitting-room. She rose sud- 
denly and spoke in a low voice. 

^^I must save every cent of this money that I 
possibly can/' she said. *'It must be saved for 
the children's education.'' 

Grandmother Minthorn said quietly: *'Thee is 
right, Huldah. God will help. thee, as He helped 
me. Thee will find a way. ' ' 

^A little after that school ended and some of the 
boys went out to the farms to pick strawberries. 
Tad and he asked Mother if they might go, too, and 
she said yes. So he began to earn money.T 

Early in the morning while the grass was still 
dewy they set out for Thompson Walker's place 
at the edge of town. The strawberry plants grew 
in long rows, with little vines running over the 
ground between them. Under the low flat leaves 
the berries grew in clusters. You lifted the 
leaves to look for them, and the largest berries 
were hardest to find. Berries must not be pulled 
from the stems, the little cap of green leaf must 
be left on them. So the stem of each berry must 
be carefully snipped between thumb and finger- 
nail. Soon the sun was very hot on the back of 
the neck, and one's back ached from bending. 
There were hard-shelled, five-cornered bugs that 
clung to the berries, and every berry they touched 
was said to turn bitter. A sweet, warm odor came 



46 THE MAKING OF 

from the strawberry leaves when they were hot 
in the sun. A morning was a very long time, but 
the afternoon was longer. Still, every quart of 
berries picked meant two cents and a half. 

When there were no more ripe berries in the 
field he trudged home, tired but satisfied. In the 
morning more berries would be ripe. After sup- 
K per he counted the money he had made that day. 
QAt the end of the season he had picked two hun- 
1 dred and twenty quarts (jf berries and earned five 
'' dollars and fifty cents? He gave this to his 
mother to pay for his education. 
CThen with a satisfied mind he began a summer 
of play.) And it was a never-to-be-forgotten sum- 
mer, for he lived it like an Indian. Qjncle Ben- 
jamin Miles, who lived in a big house, had a sub- 
sidy from the Government for an Indian school ; 
a dozen Indian girls lived there, and five boys. 
Uncle Benjamin had decided that Tad and Bertie 
should be pla^Tuates of the th|;ee young Indians 
left at school through vacation^ 
J Bertie was inwardly elated ; here was new terri- 
tory to explore. And, he had seen Indians before, 
at Uncle Laban's; this gave him a certain author- 
ity. Thus he was graduated from the ranks of 
little boys who ^ lagged." He was old enough 
now to play with the big boys almost as an equal. 
With Tad and the three Indians he vanished from 
sight of the village for that summer, j 



HERBERT HOOVER 47 

They led a subterranean existence thenceforth. 
No more for them the commonplace ways of road 
and open field. They skulked by ditch and stream, 
they stalked the unsuspecting farmer through 
leafy corn-rows. Wagonroads became the trails 
of enemies, and Bertie learned to read them at an 
expert glance, reporting to the waiting braves that 
Great-uncle William Miles had lately passed that 
way, doubtless armed to the teeth, and that retreat 
was advisable. He learned how to build a fire in 
woods wet from rain, and how to trace wild bees 
to their nests, and what treatment was best for 
bee stings. He learned how to make properly 
weighted arrows, and how to decorate them in 
straw-smoke, and how to acquire the straw without 
any discussion with its owner. It was he who 
marched into town and got from a puzzled butcher 
the beef-sinews so indispensable to the life of a 
savage, and it was he who, in the memorable mas- 
sacre of Matts Larsen^s chickens in the corn-field, 
proved beyond all doubt his contention that the 
modern sling-shot is superior to any bow and 
arrow. 

By the time the project of building a secret 
council-^place had taken form his important place 
in a savage life was well recognized. He helped 
explore ''The Grove," and took part in the solemn 
debates that followed. A certain dense hazel 
thicket was decided upon, and in the stillness of the 






48 THE MAKING OF 

woods, slipping from tree to tree, vanishing at 
sound of any step, he helped gather bark and cut 
down saplings. All the work must be done noise- 
lessly; no one must know. With most terrible 
penalties they bound one another to secrecy; they 
devised a system of bird-calls with which to signal 
the approach of any one. And in the hazel thicket, 
concealed with Indian skill, they built two wind- 
and-rain-proof wickiups, eight feet by eight, 
walled by trees and branches and roofed with 
bark. 

Only the five companions knew of these wick- 
iups. Not even Mother was told about them. 
Beneath their bark roof secret meetings were held, 
and apples were hidden, and stores of nuts and | 
wild plums. Here, too, Tad and Bertie brought 
treasures from their collection of curious stones, 
gathered on the railroad embankment, where m 
an emergency stolen apples were hidden in the 
gravel. There were many curious stones there- 
agates, and bits that looked like wood, and white 
hard ones, and others marked with veins of color. 
Not even the Indian boys knew whence these 
strange rocks came, or why they were marked with 
star-shaped patterns and stripes and circles. But 
Tad, kept from the wickiups during one whole 
afternoon by a violent toothache, returned with 
information that had turned anguish into excite- 
ment. Edward Walker, the dentist, had a collec- 



HERBERT HOOVER 49 

tion of stones in his office, stones different from 
these and even more interesting. 

Bertie hastened at once to the dentist's and 
there saw the rocks. He carried several of his 
own, and displayed them. Dr. Walker told him 
that the pointed ones were coral; they had once 
been alive, in the margin of an arm of the sea that 
had covered Iowa eons ago. How did he know 
there was a sea! The stones proved it. The 
others were petrified wood. What was ^^petri- 
fied''? What made it happen? How had the 
trees been there, if there was a sea? Then had 
they been there before the sea, or afterward? Dr. 
Walker knew no more about it ; he was busy. 

Bertie withdrew, wildly excited, and rushed to 
tell the news. The stones he held in his hand 
proved there had once been a sea all over Iowa! 
What other mysteries they might reveal no one 
could say. But those rocks had become valuable 
beyond all reckoning ; they should be handled rev- 
erently and — oh, inspiration ! — polished like those 
at the dentist's. 

The wickiups were deserted that day, while at 
the grindstone Tad and Bertie toiled to polish the 
coral. Their loving labor made deep scratches on 
the grindstone, but little more, so at last they 
abandoned the task and went back to the wickiups. 

Here between the thick stems of hazel was their 
own domain, where no one but themselves could 



50 THE MAKING OF 

ever come. Here they feathered their arrows of 
** iron wood," here they discussed hunting plans, 
here they returned with slain yellowhammer or 
wild dove, and cooked and ate. Here in sudden 
storms they took refuge and around a stealthy fire 
roasted potatoes and ears of corn, while rain mur- 
mured on the hazel leaves and trees sighed in the 
wind. Bertie felt himself indeed a man then, 
able to cope with all the elements and to lead a 
free life wherever he might be. 

Still, it was pleasant to go home when darkness 
came, to sit at the supper-table in the lamplight 
and watch his mother filling the plates as usual, 
all unsuspecting the secrets he knew. 

^ ^ Did thee have a good time to-day, Bertie I ' ' 

'^Yes, Mother." 

^^Does thee like the little Indian boys?" 

^ ' Oh, yes. Mother. I like them very much. ' ' 

^'I am glad. Benjamin tells me they are good 
boys. They do not swear nor lie nor do anything 
unkind?" 

^^ No, Mother." 

They never did. Through and through, they 
were playmates any boy might be proud of. No 
one was so clever as they in all the ways of the 
woods, no one more fair in play or work, no one 
more clean and honorable in every word and act. 
J\Autumn came too soon, with its frost on the 
colored leaves, its sweet wild grapes, and its threat 



HERBERT HOOVER 51^ 

of school. Playtime ended/ iThe wickiups were 
left to rot in the rain and snow, while he must go 
back to books and slate, and the Indian boys to 
"Uncle Benjamin 's.Ji 

^He was in the third reader now, and beginning 
history. And he read in the history book, ^^The 
Indians were red savages, cruel and treacherous.'^ 
He said nothing about it, for it was not his way 
to contradict teachers, but he did not believe the 
history book. He knew about Indians; he had 
learned about them for himself. 

He would have liked to play with them the next 
summer, but when the, long winter had passed they 
were gone. jT Uncle Benjamin's school had been 
moved to Salem, Iowa, and Uncle Benjamin was 
going to Oregon, a vague place far in the West. 
It was decided, too, that he and Tad and Sister 
May were to go visiting with Mother. They were 
going to visit Uncle Merlin Marshall and Uncle 
Samuel in Plymouth CountyTj 

Again he journeyed by train and by stage, very 
gro^VQ-up now, and experienced in such matters; 
and they arrived at a town of little wooden build- 
ings set in a level prairie. TUncle Merlin and 
Uncle Samuel had come here because land was 
cheap. There were no trees on the streets, and 
instead of fields and pastures there was the level 
plain covered with wild grass, on which the new 
small houses looked lonesome.") He felt lonely, 



52 THE MAKING OF 

too, and liked to stay near Mother. \ Tad and the 
older cousins let him go fishing with them, and 
they hunted prairie-chickens' nests among the 
wild grasses and flowers, but it was not like home. 
And when he woke in the night, strangling with 
the frightening choke of croup in his throat, he 
was more terrified than ever before, and cried for 
his mother like a baby, instead of a man nearly 
nine years old/) 

\^11 summer long they visited uncles and aunts 
in Storey Count}^ where there were woods full of 
j flowers and May-apple s,V,and at Hubbard, Iowa, 
I where Uncle Davis lived. ) Uncle Davis was a 
large, smiling man, who let him ride the horses, 
and showed him how to make a whistle of peeled 
willow. There were many new rocks there, too, 
and Aunt Maria did not at all mind his bringing 
them into the house. She put them on a shelf 
that he could reach without standing on a chair. 
Here, too. Mother became interested in rocks, and 
would go with him into the fields to look for new 
ones. She could not answer his questions about 
them, but she made him a promise. 

*^When thee grows up, thee shall go to a uni- 
versity and learn all about rocks.'' 

Did they tell one about rocks in universities? 
Did they tell one about petrified trees there, and 
why there was once a big sea all over Iowa, and 
where it had gone I They did not tell him about 



HERBEET HOOVER 53 

such things in school. He would like to go to a 
university. When could he go to a university, like 
Uncle PennI 

^*As soon as thee is old enough, if thee works 
well in school,'^ his mother said, ^^thee shall go to 
a university. ' ' 

(^He liked Uncle Davis's house; he liked Aunt 
Maria, who gave him cookies, and Uncle Davis, 
who smoked large black cigars, interesting to 
watch. But he was glad to be at home again. 
He was glad even to be going to school, because he 
came back every evening to the house that was his 
home, and with life once more a solid thing 
beneath his feet he felt confident and manly. ^ 

It was only when Mother went away to meeting 
m other towns that he felt that nine years was 
not a very great age, after all. It was not so bad 
in the daytime, but when night came he missed 
her. He would not admit it, even to Tad, but he 
would have liked her to tuck in the covers around 
him and say good night. He felt rather small and 
lonely at bedtime, without her. She was a min- 
ister now, and often she went away to speak at 
imeetings. It was the work God liked her to do, 
and the Friends wanted her so much that they 
gave her money, which was to help send him and 
Tad to a university.! So he was brave about it. 
But she always torn him when she was coming 
back, and he always managed to be playing in 



54 THE MAKING OF 

front of the house when the buggy came that 
brought her. 

(^So he felt aggrieved when one day, while she 
was gone to Springdale Meeting, he came down 
the street and saw a buggy standing under the 
maples, and the house door openj) But she had 
said she would not be home until U)-morrow. He 
ran up the path and dashed into the sitting-room, 
calling, ^^ Mother!'' Then his heart stopped, for 
the woman who lived next door came out of the 
bedroom and said, ''Hush!" 
ChIs mother was ill. She had been struck down 
in meeting, and they had brought her home and 
carried her into the house. She was in bed. Dr. 
Houser was there, and the strange man and woman 
who had brought her!^ He must be quiet. 

He was very quiet all that night, while there 
were lights downstairs and low voices and the 
sound of feet, and he was quiet all the next day. 
The doctor was still there, and uncles and aunts 
came. He did not ask any questions, for he was 
afraid of the answers. He stayed close to th( 
bedroom door, except when he felt some one wai 
looking at him. Then he went outside and shiv^ 
ered in the cold close to the wall beneath the bed] 
room window.TAnd then, in the second nighl 
some one came and woke him quickly but very 
gently and took him and Tad into the bedrooni) 
(In the morning all the uncles and aunts and 



HERBERT HOOVER 55 

cousins came) The quiet house was full of them, 
but it was emptjfffor his mother was deadJ There 
was a terrible emptiness everyw^here, andiu it he 
was alone, helpless, and dumb with a terror he 
could not escape. There was no refuge left to 
which he could run and be safe.^ 

I iSHuldah Randall Hoover died February 24, 1884. j 



CHAPTER II 

IT was a bright winter afternoon following a 
night of falling snow. Lying awake on a damp 
pillow, the boy had heard the soft, almost imper- 
ceptible whisper of the snoAvflakes against the 
window-pane and the creaking of tree branches 
bending under their weight. His mother was 
gone ; he would never see her again. He had seen 
her buried under the raw earth in the snowy 
churchyard, and God had taken her to heaven. 

He did not wish her to be in heaven ; he wished 
her there beside him. He wished to see and touch 
her. His whole being was one agonized cry to her 
to come back to him. But he could not have her. 
All his longing made no difference. The inexor- 
able fact was there, like a solid, indifferent, and 
topless wall against which clamor was futile. 

Now the dazzling white sunshine streamed piti- 
lessly through the windows of the sitting-room 
where he stood waiting to learn what would be 
done with him. Uncle Allan Hoover was there in 
his stiff black suit; Aunt Millie, wiping her eyes 
with her handkerchief; Step-grandmotlier Han- 
nab, and Uncle Merlin Marshall, and Great-uncle 

5G 



HERBERT HOOVER 57 

Benajah, clearing his tliroat with a rasping sound 
before he spoke. Little Grandmother Minthorn 
held the brown-eyed baby sister in her lap, where 
she cuddled very quietly. Beside the center-table 
sat that kindly old gentleman, Laurie Tatum, who 
had managed Father's money for Mother and had 
often come to talk to her about it. There were 
papers on the table, and letters; a letter from 
Uncle Laban Miles in Indian Territory, offering a 
home for one of the boys, and a letter from Uncle 
Davis saying that he would take Theodore as his 
own son, teach him farming, and when he was 
twenty-one give him a good wagon and team, 
according to the custom of fathers with their sons. 

These matters and others had been discussed 
and decided upon. ( Grandmother Minthorn 
wanted Sister May and* was to have her. Theo- 
dore was to go to Uncle Davis^? ^Grandmother 
Minthorn had asked the judge to make Laurie 
Tatum executor of the estate. He would sell the 
house and take care of the money until the chil- 
dren needed it for their education. And Bertie 
was to live with Uncle Allan and Aunt Millie^ 

He looked at them across the sunny, ra^-car- 
peted space. Aunt Millie was kind. But just 
then he did not wish to go to any woman who was 
not his mother. Uncle Allan looked gravely at 
him above the beard he stroked with long, nervous 
fingers. Bertie hesitated, went toward him, and 



58 THE MAKING OF 

then with a little run flung himself into Uncle 
Allan's welcoming arms and sobbed against the 
black coat. He was ashamed, but he could not 
help it. This was the last time that he cried like 
a baby, for now he was nine years old, going on 
ten, and a man alone in the world. 

That afternoon he said good-by to Tad and Sis- 
ter May. The home was gone and all that had 
made it was being scattered. His clothes were 
packed, and the two mottos his mother had given 
him, beautifully worked in wool and framed— 
*' Leave Me Not, Neither Forsake Me, God of 
My Salvation, '^ and ^'I Will Never Leave nor 
Forsake Thee." 

\Laurie Tatum, his good friend who had often 
given him pennies and fatherly advice, talked to 
him about his future conduct.^ He must be kind 
and brave and prudent. QUe ihust help as much as 
he could on Uncle Allan's farm; he was too small 
to help much, and for that reason it was just that 
he should pay part of his board from the money 
that was his. Laurie Tatum would manage it for 
him until he was old enough to go to college; in 
the meantime here was a small black book in which 
Bertie should set down any money he received and 
the purpose for which it was spent/ ''God bless 
thee, my boy.'' 

/ So he drove away from the house of the maples, 
(with Uncle Allan and Aunt Millie, and began a 



HERBERT HOOVER 59 

new life on the farm in Cedar County^ Every)- 
thing was changed; he must adjust himself to 
another home, to other playmates, to unaccus- 
tomed ways and faces. All that he had given his 
mother and could never give any one else he must 
keep locked in his own heart. But the change 
was not without its excitements and pleasures ; he 
played and ate and helped with the chores enthusi- 
astically, and though he kept his own council about 
many things, no one else knew it. 
/" Uncle Allan and Aunt Millie made no distinction 
between him and their own son Walter, just his 
age; they awarded praise and blame with impar- 
tial justice and atfection. He brought in wood, 
pumped water, fed the horses and learned to har- 
ness them, taught the young calves to drink from 
a pail, and with a corn-planter in his hand trudged 
the fresh-turned furrows in the spring. Uncle 
Allan had tolerance for boys^\^hen they stopped 
too long at the end of a row to watch a beetle or 
spy on a quail's nest his shout across the field, 
^^Boys!'' was more a reminder than a rebuke. 
Qiaying-time drew near, and it was Bertie's 
idea to harness one of the calves and teach it to 
draw a mowing-machine. Uncle Allan heard this 
solemnly and made no objection. So the boys set 
to work in the shed behind the house, cutting and 
sewing old straps to make a small harnessj and 
when Aunt Millie needed stove-wood she called 



60 THE MAKING OF 

twice. ^Before the harness was finished Bertie had 
evolved another idea. They would make a mow- 
ing-machine, too. Uncle Allan was doubtful about 
that, but Bertie anxiously explained that he could 
make it with old boards and a worn cross-cut saw 
that he had acquired by barter ; all he asked were 
a few bolts and the use of the tools. Uncle Allan 
yielde^ '^Thee may try it." 
C;" The mowing-machine was a triumph. The 
wheels were borrowed from an old buggy, the 
framework was neatly sawed and nailed, and the 
steel cutting-edges, sharpened by patient toil with 
a file, actually moved back and forth like those of 
the big machines. Aunt Millie was called to 
admire it; Uncle Allan praised it highly. The 
meadows were not ready to be cut, he said, but the 
, boys could mow the grass in the side yard. 
I So one morning after the chores were done they 
1 led the unsuspecting calf to the shed door and 
\ harnessed him. He stood stolidly while they did 
\ it. He was used to the harness. Walter fastened 
the traces to the whiffletrec and Bertie took up the 
reins. ''Git up!'' he said. The calf did not 
Uove. ''Poke him a little, AValter. Git up!" 
I His feet were suddenly lifted from the ground. 
Bawling aloud, the calf fled. The mowing- 
Vnachine leaped after him, and Bertie, grimly hold- 
ing to the reins, followed in giant strides. The 



HERBERT HOOVER 61 

active haunches of the calf, the threat of the 
machine ^s lurching knives, the terrible fact that 
he was devastating the lettuce bed, mingled in one 
horrid chaos. He held tight to the reins. Aunt 
Millie was screaming, ^ ' Bertie ! Let go ! ' ' There 
was a crash. The reins broke. He sat down hard 
among young tomato-plants. 

The bawling calf, tail high in air, sped through 
the barn-yard and away, with Walter in hurried 
pursuit. The mowing-machine lay a wreck 
against the apple-tree trun^ Aunt Millie, weak 
with laughter, wiped her eyes with her apron and 
laughed again. Bertie rose slowly, inspected his 
trousers for rents, put his hands in his pockets, 
and looked at the remnants of the beautiful 
machine. 

'^Well, that 's ended,'' he said equably. What 
was the use of complaining! The thing was 
done. 

*' Bertie is like his -father," Uncle Allan said at 
the dinner-table. And he reminded Aunt Millie 
that the hard, unhappy times of the Civil War had 
made men of the boys of those days. Jesse 
Hoover at sixteen had done a man's work in the 
fields, had carried a man's responsibilities, and 
had been thoughtful and serious beyond his years. 
Z'*' Bertie misses his mother more than he lets 
Dn," Aunt Millie thought, looking at the round. 



62 THE MAKING OF 

cheerfully sober little face. As mucli as she could 
she tried to fill Huldah 's place, and Bertie under- 
stood and was grateful. ^ 

(^When he woke in the nights, fighting for breath, 
choked with the croup that still caught him by the 
throat in the darkness, he saw her with the lighted 
lamp in her hand, a calico wrapper hastily thrown 
over her nightgown, hastening to his rescue. jShe 
put onion poultices on his chest. She wr^p^ed 
him in warmed blankets and held him in her arms, 
suffering with him, doing all she could to help him. 
In those long night hours while his head lay 
against her broad shoulder and the lamplight 
slowly turned pale in the dawn the old longing for 
his mother was hardest to bear. But he must not 
let Aunt Millie know that, because it would hurt 
her. No one else could be his mother, but Aunt 
Millie did her best, and he loved her.*^ 
Q The summer went by in its orderly cycle of farm 
work.^The com had come up and was harrowed 
and plowed; the hay ripened for cutting in the 
meadows. In the early mornings he harnessed 
the horses and drove the two-horse mowing- 
machine to the fields as soon as the dew was off 
the timothy and clover. He rode in the high iron 
seat, the sedate farm horses plodded before him, 
and behind him the green hay, dotted with daisies 
and blue corn-flowers, fell neatly in its four-foot 
swath. A clean, sweet odor rose from it. The 



HERBERT HOOVER 63 

sun grew warmer* on his back. At the end of each 
row he shifted the levers, the horses turned about, 
he lowered the shining knives again and followed 
the edge of standing hay back across the meadow. 

There was time to think. He thought of the 
men he knew who were farmers; he thought of 
his mother's plans for his education, that now he 
must carry out. Qle debated the question of 
spending ten cents for fish-hooks, and considered 
in this connection the price of shoes. Laurie 
Tatum gave him five dollars a month for such 
expenses, and he kept his accounts neatly in the 
little black book.^ 

In the afternoWs when the sun was hottest he 
stopped the horses occasionally at the end of a row 
and let them rest in the shade of the apple-trees by 
the fence. He drank from the jug of water that 
lay covered with hay, and he had leisure to watch 
the birds and to make a horrible noise with a 
grass-blade held between the thumbs. But his 
conviction that he did not wish to be a farmer 
grew steadily more firm. 

One night he came from the meadows white and 
shaking. He was hardly able to put up the horses. 
He staggered blindly to the house and told Aunt 
Millie that he did not want any supper. His fore- 
head was cold and damp. Uncle Allan was called 
at once, and Walter was sent to hitch up the buggy 
and go for the doctor while Aunt Millie put him 



64 THE MAKING OF 

to bed. She accused herself and Uncle Allan 
impartially while she did it. 

''We Ve let him work too hard in the hot sun. 
We should have watched over him better. He 's 
going to be sick, and it is our fault. What would 
Huldah say if she knew?— There, there, Bertie! 
does that feel better?— Has Walter started yet! 
Allan, I shall never forgive myself—" 

But at that moment the cause of Bertie's illness 
became apparent, and when the worst was over 
Aunt Millie sat down and laughed till she wept, 
while Uncle Allan said sternly, *^ Bertie, did we 
not tell thee not to eat those green apples!" 

^^Yes, Uncle Allan," he said meekly, suspecting 
nevertheless that there was a smile beneath Uncle 
Allan's beard. He waited in suspense, for he 
knew Uncle Allan's conscience, and he knew that 
he deserved to be punished. Uncle Allan 's strug- 
gle was brief. 

*'Then let this be a lesson, and do not disobey 
us again. ' ' 

*^No, Uncle Allan." 
(^After the haying came the harvesting of wheat 
and oatsN Aunt Millie worked for a week baking 
pies, cakes, dozens of loaves of bread, great pans 
f of beans and rice-pudding to feed the threshers. 
(The threshing-machine arrived, with three sun- 
burned, hard-muscled men who were up before 
dawn and worked till the last light faded from the 



HERBERT HOOVER 65 

sky. All the neighbors also came over and helped.^ 
At dark, the tired horses came clumping into the 
barn with a jingling of harness and Bertie and 
Walter did the chores by lantern-light, while in 
the kitchen Aunt Millie washed the supper dishes 
and set the breakfast-table. 

Uncle Allan paid two cents a bushel for the 
threshing of the wheat, and three cents for the 
oats. He sold the wheat for forty cents or less 
and the oats .for twenty-three. No help was 
needed for the corn ; Uncle Allan and the two boys 
had planted it, harrowed it twice, hoed it, plowed 
it four times. After the threshers were gone they . 
cut some of the hard corn-stalks, shocked them, \ 
and hauled the shocks to the barn-yard. (^There in | 
the frosty autumn evenings after the cows were 
milked they husked the yellow ears by lantern- 
lighj;, Bertie working with his own little husking- 
peg.^ But mostly they husked the corn standing 
in the field, often with snow on the ground. 
Bertie worked thoughtfully at this ; he was reflect- 
ing that corn sold for fifteen to thirty cents a 
bushel. p 

He thought, too, about cows. His enthusiasm ! 



<>, 



or calves was gone ; they were boisterous, unrea- 
sonable beasts that bunted the pails they should 
drink from, that ran in every direction they should 
not when a boy drove them every night from pas- 
ture, that were liable to choke on apples or 



66 THE MAKINO OF 

cut themselves on barbed wire. They grew into 
cows that must be fed and watered and milked 
twice a day. Then the milk must be strained, and 
carried down cellar and up again, and skimmed. 
When the butter was churned and worked and 
salted and carried to town, it sold for ten cents a 
pound. 

School had begun. Bertie and Walter walked 
the two miles every day with books and lunch-pail, 
and at his desk Bertie stole time from his proper 
studies to do a little figuring of his o^vn. The 
results confirmed his earlier opinion. Uncle 
Allan could be a farmer if he liked, but Bertie 
would not. From his point of view the time he 
spent in farming was worse than tiresome ; it was 
wasted.^ 

CDurihg the next summer a letter arrived from 
Uncle John Minthorn, now in Oregon, offering to 
take Bertie. Uncle Allan and Aunt Millie dis- 
cussed it with him, and they rode to Springdale 
'to talk it over with Laurie Tatum. Bertie remem- 
bered Uncle John only vaguely ; most of the uncles 
and aunts had moved away and gone out of his 
tlife. Dr. John had married Mother's friend 
^^aura Miles, a sister of Uncle Laban, and they 
had followed her father, Benjamin Miles, into 
inissionary work among the Indians./ 

One of the most brilliant physicians and sur- 
f geons in the West,(l)r. John had abandoned hir 



HERBERT HOOVER 67 

promising career in its beginning to give medical [ 
service to the Ponca Agency Indians; lie had i 
become superintendent of Chief Joseph's tribe 1 
and later head of the Chilocco Indian School; ' 
then he had gone to Oregon and had built up the 
small Forest Grove Indian School into a thriving 
institution. He was now opening a new school, 
the Pacific Academy, for a small Friends' settle- 
ment named Newberg, and Bertie could be a stu- 
dent there. ^ 

^'Millie and I shall be sorry to lose Bertie," 
Uncle Allan said heavily, ''but it seems our duty 
to let him go. John can give him more advantages 
than we can here. I do not know a man I would 
go further to hear than John when he is in the 
mind to talk. He has a good education and he has 
deep thoughts of his own. I have heard him in 
I five minutes give a man ideas to think about for 
a week or more. ' ' 

Laurie Tatum took off his spectacles and pol- 
ished them with his black silk handkerchief. They 
were talking in his parlor, with its neat chairs 
against the wall, its rows of heavy books, and the 
shining pink-and-white shell on the center-table. 
Bertie sat straight, his cap in his hands, and 
listened. Laurie Tatum said that he had talked 
it over with Grandmother Minthorn ; she thought 
it best that Bertie go. 
^ "John Minthorn is a good man," said Laurie 



68 THE MAKING OF 

/Tatum in his slow, kind voice. ''He would give 
/ the boy a good Christian home and many advan- 
tages. As thee says, he has both learning and 
understanding.'^ He slowly replaced the spec- 
tacles on his nose and looked at Bertie over the 
steel rims. ''Bertie, thee is eleven years old. 
What has thee to say about itf 

The boy answered regretfully, for he loved 
Uncle Allan and Aunt Millie and would be sorry 
to leave them. But before him was the West with 
its new adventure, and there was also the academy, 
to be considered as a step away from the farm and 
toward the university. ' ' I think I had better go. ' ' 

So it was decided. Uncle Allan went with him 
while he bought a new suit ; Aunt Millie carefully 
ironed and mended for him and packed the tele- 
scope bag that had been his mother's^ His two 
treasured mottos went into it, and a collection of 
crooked sticks that was his pride. On a crisp Sep- 
tember morning they all drove to the statio^ He 
shook Uncle Allan's hand several times, and when 
they saw the train coming down the track Aunt 
Millie hugged Mm tightly. 

"Be a good boy, Bertie." 

"I will. Aunt Millie," he promised fervently. 
Then he manfully climbed the car steps, and the 
train bore him away toward the West. 
CHc traveled with a neighbor of Uncle Allan's, 
01 Hammel— his name was Oliver, but he was 



HERBERT HOOVER 69 

called 01 — and they were both provided with large 
lunch-baskets. They rode in the day-coach, which 
was cheaper than the Pullman, and at night they 
curled on the plush-covered seats and slept not 
uncomfortably. They waited twelve hours at 
Council Bluffs,^the junction point for all west- 
bound trains, and there he saw the Missouri River, 
a great body of yellow water wider than he had 
imagined a river could be. And in the morning he 
woke to gaze on an interminable empty plain, 
houseless and fenceless, stretching to the edges of 
the world. 

PFor five days and five nights they rode, across 
parched sage-brush plains, through deep canons 
whose rock walls shut out the sky, past monster 
mountains crowned with snow, and through gigan- 
tic forests where he saw the curious needle-leaved 
pine and the feathery cedar and hemlock above 
the blue waters of the Columbia River?\ 01 Ham- 
mel told him of the hundred-foot masts^ade from ' 
those trees, and of the huge, red-fleshed fish, the 
salmon, that were scooped from the stream by 
great turning wheels, like the water-wheels of 
mills. \They alighted in Portland, a roaring city 
of fifty thousand people, that confused him with 
its crowds and noise, and there they got on the 
river boat that would carry them to Newberg 
where the railroad did not go."^ 
01 Hammel went into the little cabin, but Bertie 



70 THE MAKING OF 

stayed on deck where the freight was piled and 
watched the foam of the paddle-wheel and the 
autumn-colored banks of the Willamette. He had 
never seen so many trees. His eagerness for 
information conquered his shyness ; he spoke to a 
fellow-traveler in overalls who lounged at the rail 
chewing tobacco, and was told their names. 
There stood the flaming red dogwood, the yellow 
maples, the silvery-green spruces, among the dark 
cedars and pines. Beyond them were the blue 
Cascades, and far away, like the glory in the sky 
pictured in the Bible, he saw in sunlight above the 
clouds the snowy peak of Mount Hood. 

From time to time the boat edged close to the 
bank, its ripples breaking up the clear mirrored 
colors of the trees. A deck-hand threw a looped 
rope over a raw-cut stump; the boat stopped. 
Boxes were put out on the ground, among the pine- 
needles and chips ; other packages were taken on, 
receipts for them were hastily scrawled and left 
in a box nailed to a tree; the boat resumed ite 
jourse. 

Crhey passed the locks at Oregon City, moving 
through the opened gates that closed behind them, 
rising with the rising water, moving agaiu 
through higher gates. There were people on the 
banks here, and mills and factories. Below, the 
forest shut in again^ 

At four o'clock fhey reached Wynooska Land- 



HERBEET HOOVER 71 

ing, a level space at the foot of the wall of trees. 
Above stumps and trampled mud stood a large 
warehouse, whose open doors showed stacks of 
plump wheat-sacks. Beyond it a yellow road 
wound upward over the bank. Horses were tied 
to the trees, and there was a little group of men 
at the landing. It was all very different from 
anything he had known. He stepped bravely out 
to meet it, lugging his telescope bag, and stood 
hesitating, in his long trousers and little round 
jacket, very conscious that he was much smaller 
than he felt. 

Then his hand was grasped by that of Uncle 
John Minthorn and he was looking up into a 
grave, handsome face, at serious eyes and a black 
mustache. Uncle John accepted him at his o\\ti 
valuation, as a man and not as a child. ^'Put thy 
bag in the buggy, Bertie, and untie the horses. I 
will be there in a moment.'' 

They drove rapidly up the yellow road that fol- 
lowed the high bank of a small stream. There 
were fir and cedars on the bank, but the other side 
of the road had been cleared and burned; it was 
desolate with charred stumps and blackened earth. 
Bertie answered Uncle John's questions about 
West Branch people. Dr. John's horses went 
fast ; he gave an impression of a man very much 
hurried, with many important things on his mind. 
He did not smile easily, but at the rare times when 



72 THE MAKING OF 

he did there appeared in his face, for an instant, 
all the sunshine and warmth that had been in 
Mother's smile. 

CThey passed a new, unpainted house, another 
nearly built; they were in Newberg. It Avas a 
village much smaller than West Branch, sur- 
rounded by fir and cedar forests, clearings still 
full of stumps, and mountains on whose sides were 
squares of yellow, the stubble of harvested wheat- 
fields)CUncle John pointed out the Pacific Acad- 
emy, fresh in its first coat of paintT^ ' ' Education is 
the foundation of a worthy life, Bertie. No build- 
ing will stand without foundation. First of all, 
seek understanding. Put education before every- 
thing else." 
y^Yes, Uncle John.'' 

<rThere were two or three small cottages built 
near the academy. Uncle John lived in one of 
them; as soon as the girls' dormitory was finished 
they would move into it. There was no room for 
Bertie in the cottage, already crowded with three 
little girl cousins, but he could sleep in a tiny 
room in the main building. Aunt Laura welcomed 
him in a kind, practical way; she, too, treated him 
as much older than her own children. Her own 
little boy who had died had been four years 
younger than he.^ ■ 

(^Ile J'ose at once to meet this estimate of liim, 
and his first act, when he stood in the cottage sit- 



H 



HERBERT HOOVER 73 

ting-room surrounded by these strange faces, was 
to take from his pocket and show to Uncle John 
the little black book in which were set down every 
sum of money he had received and the use to 
which he had put it/J But his second remark 
betrayed him. Beginning to unbuckle the straps 
of the telescope bag, he thought of the precious 
collection in it, and inquired, *^Are there any 
crooked sticks herel'^ 

He had made himself ridiculous. Crooked 
sticks in Oregon, in those endless forests? Aunt 
Laura's matter-of-fact inquiries about his under- 
wear and the state of his socks, in the presence of 
the interested little girl cousins, were fagots addedr 
to the heap of his humiliations. (^If he was to be 
met as a grown-up person, he should not be treatedj 
as a child. He carried his collection of crooked 
sticks to the woodpile and left them there. He 
left the last of his childhood with them, unregret- 
ted, and took up the life of a twelve-year-old boy 
in Newberg.N 

r Newberg was a pioneer town at the farthest 
western edge of the old pioneer America. Its 
people were Friends; hard-working, God-fearing 
men and women whose fiber had been hard enough 
to make the cutting-edge of civilization against a 
continent-wide wilderness.'^ He learned from 
them also that life is hard mid earnest ; that duty 
is the guide to follow; that time was not given 



74 THE MAKING OF 

man to be spent in idleness ; nor the days of youth 
in wasteful playing. 

^He was expected, of course, to work for his 
boardS The world was not so made that men 
received anything without making payment for it. 
^is money must be saved for his later education ; 
therefore, like boys who had no money and lived 
with their fathers, he paid with his labor. Like 
y them, he rose early in the morning and fed and 
] watered the horses, milked the cow, carried wood 
and water; he curried the horses, washed the 
buggy, cleaned the stable after school, and on 
Saturdays he found work miong the neighbors 
that brought him small sums!^ This was a train- 
ing designed to make good men. 

He accepted it willingly enough. Every one 
around him worked; work was the fundamental 
fact of life. But he felt new, independent impul- 
ses rising within him now ; he felt that he was a 
man, taking a man's part in the world, holding 
his own and paying his way in new surroundings 
and among strangers. He could discipline him- 
self; he resented discipline from without. And 
he was aware that Uncle John and Aunt Laura 
had taken him as an added responsibility in their 
overloaded lives; that they felt it their duty to 
control his actions for his own good. 
("He could not be sullen; there was a well of sane 
ciieerfuhiess in him that washed away sullenness. 



HERBERT HOOVER 75 

But he became more silent, and in his very silence ' 
there was an aloofness and an exasperation. Het 
knew this, but he could not help it. And he grew \ 
to detest horses. He made no concealment of this 
fact, so inexplicable to Dr. John, to whom horses 
were the one passion and pride left from his dash- 
ing youth in West Branch. He said openly that 
he hated horses ; he hated to water and feed and I 
harness them ; he absolutely refused to ride onej, / 
though he knew that Dr. John had expected him to 
take pleasure in doing so. 

He went his own way quietly, avoiding opposi- 
tion as much as he could with honesty; defeated/ 
always in any clash between his own opinions and] 
Dr. John 's sense of duty toward him.*']me was! 
cheerful among the boy friends that lie quicklyv 
made; he was always in the school-yard games ati 
recess, though never a leader.^XAnd daily he be- 
came more silent, more unobtrusive, looking with 
observant eyes at the life around him and think- 
ing it over without spoken commentT) 
VjEe woke in the mornings, alone in his tiny bare 
room. He dressed, shivering, washed his face in 
the stinging cold water, and went briskly to do the 
chores."^ Aunt Laura had been up before him; she 
had wd^ed and dressed the children and super- 
vised breakfast for the girls in the dormitory ; she 
was busy with a hundred details of housekeeping 
and mothering them all, and before her was a day 



76 ^ THE MAKING OF 

/ of teaching in the school. Q^Bertie ate a hearty 
breakfast in silence, knelt for morning prayers, 
and went to make his bed before schooltime.^ 
CWhen the bell rang a hundred students met in 
the assembly-room. He was the smallest and 
youngest among them ; many of them were young 
men and women, some were married and had chil- 
dren of their o^viTL)Q'rom the platform Dr. John 
looked down on them allj)he felt a personal respon- 
sibility for the welfare of each of them. 

^{He was principal of the struggling new academy, 
a member of the Board of Trustees, concerned 
with its debts and with raising the money for 
needed buildings; he was teacher in the class 
rooms, and he was the only physician in Yamliill 
Count\^> His mind was overcrowded with work 
and many anxieties, yet each morning he called 
the students together and tried to give them help 
and inspiration. He was a good speaker, his 
voice was clear and impressive, and there was- 
earnest thought behind his words: 

''This morning we will think about the life of 
Joseph, who w^as chosen by God to be ruler over 
Egypt. God has a plan for the life of every one. 
He arranges all our experiences with the object of 
carrying out that plan, and that plan would be the 
one each of us would choose if we could see it as a 
whole, as God sees it. But we cannot see our lives 
as a whole, so we must take them on faith. 



HEEBERT HOOVER 77 

*^God intended Joseph to be a ruler. There- 
fore he gave him dreams of ruling, so that Joseph 
would use his own efforts in that direction, and 
not waste his time and strength in fruitless efforts 
in any other direction. God intended Joseph to 
rule over Egypt, a nation composed largely of 
slaves. Therefore God let him be a slave, in order 
that he might have sympathy for slaves. 

'^God knew that to be a ruler it is necessary to 
understand politics. So he let Joseph be sold to 
Potiphar, in order that he might stand behind 
Potiphar's chair and listen to politics talked by 
the rulers, the *Ins,' during several years. And 
for practice in ruling, he was put in charge of 
Potiphar 's household. 

**Then Joseph was sent to prison, not to a 
prison for common criminals but to one filled with 
the king's political prisoners, the *Outs.' Here 
he learned the other side of Egypt's politics, and 
learned to rule over the 'Outs,' for the keeper of 
the prison committed all things into his hand. 

''When he graduated out of this university for 
practical experience, he went to the throne, tlie 
only properly trained ruler that ever lived. For 
God had intended him to be a ruler and had 
trained him for ruling, and Joseph had followed 
God's plan with faith in Him, though at the time 
he could not see God's final purpose. So we learn 
from the story of Joseph that what might have 



rl 



78 THE MAKING OF 

seemed to be hardships were, to one that worked 
bv faith, the most precious privileges." 
QAfter a brief prayer the students went to their 
I books. The work was easy for Bertie ; he stood 
high in his classes, among students so much older 
than he. Mathematics had no terrors for him; it 
fitted the orderly processes of his mind. He felt 
a sense of power in this conquering of knowledge ; 
he was happy at his desk. Dr. John said little in 
praise of his accomplishments, telling him instead 
that pride is a snare that traps a man's feet and 
brings him down to disaster. 

Every evening at seven o'clock in Dr. John's 
house conversation stopped. The lamp was put 
in the center of the table, and the children sat 
about it with their books and studied until bed- 
time*^ Aunt Laura was busy with the girl board- 
ers or with lesson-papers ; Uncle John was buried 
in academy affairs, or driving over the mountain 
roads in the darkness to visit the sick. VAt nine 
o'clock Bertie rose, said good night, and went to 
:bed./ /- 

Sundays were different. ^^^ On Sunday mommg, 
after the chores and breakfast, he went to Sabbath 
School. He remained for the meeting afterward?^ 
At twelve o'clock or later he went sedately home- 
ward with the other boys, walking carefully, mth 
thought for Sunday shoes and garments. \Re was 
\ not enthusiastic about Sabbath School; he felt 



HERBERT HOOVER 79 

that he could be a good boy without it. The con- 
tribution plate was a vexation to him. Was it not 
enough to sit repeating lessons that he already 
knew, without being asked to pay for itf] He 
gave generously to missions that served less for- 
tunate boys than himself, but he could not honestly 
be a cheerful giver to Sabbath School, and he 
knew that the Lord had no love for his unwilling 
nickel. ^An escape from this grudging giv-l 
ing offered itself, and he grasped it immedi- 
ately. I 

^^ Bertie, I thought I saw you put a quarter in 
the plate," his best friend remarked with awe. i 

*^I did." 

*^But how can you afford it? I can only give ai 
nickel. ' ^ 

*^Well, you see — Uncle John always gives me 
twice as much as I put in."^ 

At the dinner-table Uncle John gave him the 
money, which he added to his savings for uni- 
versity days. There would be some sense in 
spending money to learn things he did not already 
know. 
t C^ After dinner he must sit quietly reading the 
Bible until three o 'clock. At that hour he went to 
the meeting of the Band of Hope, the children's 
I temperance society to which, in that town never 
i invaded by a saloon, all children must give their 
I Sunday aftemoons?>|^here was time for several 



80 THE MAKING OF 

more chapters of the Bible before the cold Sunday 

supper, and then he went to evenmg services, 

I carrying the lantern that at ten o'clock lighted his 

ivay home to bed.) 
/ (^ In this manner the months went past, lightened 
by occasional hours of play and darkened by the 
increasing silent struggle between his growing 
independence and Dr. John's conscientious disci- 
plinej During the summer vacation he had a 
goodPjob, and he learned to swim in a deep pool 
below the saw-mill where whirring band-saws 
sliced the moving pine logs into raw lumber that 
smelled of turpentine in the sun. He saw the 
coming of the railroad to Newberg, and at the 
blacksmith shop where wheat-farmers waited 
while their horses were shod he heard the first 
talk of orchards. 
C^ Many a time his will clashed with Uncle John's, 

f but he obeyed, without a word, resentment blazing 
in him. Uncle John knew well enough the things 
he did not like. One night, after such an encoun- 
ter, when Bertie sat in the kitchen, silent and 
tight-lipped. Dr. John said to his wife: 

''Laura, there is only one way to break a colt 
to lead. Begin when he is a suckling and put a 

I halter on him and let him run beside his mother. 

I Then when he is old enough to break he remembers 

} the halter and there is no trouble. If he is old 
enough to break before he knows the halter there 



HERBERT HOOVER 81 

will be a fight to get it on him. Sometimes the 
fight is not worth the trouble." 

Bertie rose and went to bed. A few weeks later 
I he made arrangements to work for his board at 
Benjamin Miles 's. 

That stern old Quaker, father of Uncle Laban 
and Aunt Laura, had even more strict ideas of the 
proper duties of boys. He held the belief that 
the younger generation was spoiling children by 
too easy disciplined *^ Satan finds work for idle 
hands, '^ he said,\and intending to guard Bertie 
from falling into idle habits he set him to grub- 
bing out the stump of a ten-foot fir in the back 
yard. It was a back-breaking task that filled 
every week-day moment between chores and 
school hours.^ 

He was glaa, now, that the Seventh Day was a 
day of rest. And one September Sunday morning 
as he started for church a buggy drove into the 
yard. He looked, and stood still. His heart 
stood still. Tad ! 

The big brother had come all the way from Iowa 
to be with him. He had company now in the little 
corner room of the academy building where they 
slept together, and for the first time another per- 
son knew of the torturing earaches that kept him 
awake at night, and of the resentment he felt 
because, paying his own way like a man, he was 
treated as a child. 



82 THE MAKING OF 

Tad was openly rebellious, both for himself and 
for Bertie. Tad was seventeen years old, warm- 
hearted, headstrong. He did terrible things. He 
went for long trips in the hills instead of attend- 
ing Sabbath School; it was whispered that he had 
smoked ; he threatened to go to a country dance. 
One day when his sense of justice was outraged 
he started a fight in the very academy yard. He 
stood brazenly before Uncle John and said that as 
long as he felt that he was doing right he did not 
care what other people thought. 

**You ought to think about what other people 
think," said Bertie, bringing up a conclusion from 
his storehouse of them. ^'What they think is a 
fact, like— like a buzz-saw. You have to get along 
with it. You can do what you think is right, just 
the same." 

That was a memorable winter because the mill- 
pond froze hard enough for skating. Bertie, late 
of Iowa, had the only pair of boys' skates in town. 
Of course he could not refuse to lend them. For 
many days he looked forward to enjoying those 
skates himself, but there were so many boys who 
wished to learn to skate in their few free hours 
that his turn was long delayed. However, he 
stood on the bank and watched the spectacle of 
the other boys' efforts, which was much more fun 
than a selfish use of the skates would have been, 
f CLIis thirteenth year came, and he had a decision 



HERBERT HOOVER 83 

to make. The Pacific Academy was well estabv 
lished, and Uncle John was moving to Salemi 
going into the land business with B. S. Cook. Thej 
third wave in the development of the West was 
rising: first the forests, then the wheat, now the 
orchards. Bertie conld go to work in ^ Uncle 
John's office, or he could continue in school'. The 
cjioice was left to him."^ 

\^He consulted the little black book. There was , 
not enough money to send him through college ; he \ 
would have to work his way through. He was | 
tired of chores and odd jobs; besides, he knew 
only farm work. He would need business expe- 
rience to pay his way through a university. An 
opportunity to learn business methods had pre- 
sented itself; he would grasp it. ''I will take the 
job, Uncle John."^ 

In Uncle John's rare smile Bertie for the first 
time had a glimpse of the pride his uncle felt in 
him. But it was suppressed instantly. ''Thee 
' will go with Tad to drive the horses and cow to 
Salem, then. ' ' Dr. John was again the disciplina- 
rian. 

In the hurry of packing, of leaving the academy 
affairs in order, of last visits to the sick, on the one 
side, in the nervousness that came from nights 
tormented by the earache and from hasty meals in 
a disx)rdered household, on the other, the long- 
|: gathering storm broke. Uncle John was peremp- 



84 THE MAKING OF 

tory; Bertie's self-control slipped from his trem- I 
bling hands. He stood up and spoke, bitterly 
and defiantly. In the littered yard, among the 
packing-cases, while the startled horses listened, 
the spirit of him clashed against the spirit, so like 
his, in Uncle John. In the red moment both for- 
got the incident, the last tiny jar, that had precip- 
itated the encounter. Each faced the other with 
the fury of righteousness outraged ; neither could 
retreat. 

The memory of that battle lay long between 
them, never spoken of, through the first days in 
Salem. Bertie lived in Uncle John's house on the 
outskirts of the city, in Highland Friends' colony, 
a subdivision being sold by the new Oregon Land 
Company; he worked in the company's office, 
where Uncle John was a partner. They met a 
hundred times a day, and their coldness slowly 
became an unexpressed respect for each other. 
For Uncle John was an able, far-seeing business 
man, and Bertie matched him with an equal ability 
as office boy. 

^Salem was a city of eight thousand people, like 
a tree, drawing its sustenance from the fertile 
acres of wheatland that were rapidly becoming 
orchards. Here was the opportunity of the Ore- 
gon Land Company to help build the future of 
Salem. Orchards! A hundred families living 
prosperously where ten had lived before; large 



I 



HERBERT HOOVER 85 

ranches cut into small farms; small farms into ( 
town lots; roads made streets; streets laid with 
rails for street cars; fortunes pouring into the 
land-offices. These were the dreams of the men 
who organized the Oregon Land Company. 

In the background Bertie watched it all, silent, 
observant and very busy. Grandmother Min- 
thorn and May had come from Iowa and were 
living in a cottage beside Dr. John's house. 
There were chores to be done for them: wood to/ 
be chopped, water to be carried. He arrived at 
the office in the morning while the long street was 
still damp with dew between rows of locked two- 
story buildings. He opened the office doors, 
swept the floor and sidewalk, dusted the desks, andj 
opened the morning mail. He glanced through \ 
the letters, sorted them, and laid them ready for I 
Uncle John and Mr. Cook. Then he rearranged \ 
the window displays— sheaves of wheat, mam- \ 
moth pumpkins, red apples, and jars of enormous \ 
prunes in alcohol?) By this time the day's work f 
was beginning; men passed the plate-glass win- \ 
dows, stores were opened, the horse-car went leis- 
urely down the street. Mr. Cook came in, large, 
good-natured, saying heartily, ''Good morning, 
Bert ! Fine day !" ^ Laura Huelat, the pretty fif- 
teen-year-old stenographer, arrived and went into 
her little glass-walled cage. And Mr. Cottle, who 
handled the Eastern advertising, entered hastily. 



^6 THE MAKING OF 



saying, *'Bert! Where 's the—!" Wliatever it 
was, Bert put his hand upon it instantly and 
presented it without an unnecessary word, j 

It was a busy office. All day long men canie and 
went, letters arrived, maps were being made, con- 
tracts closed, notes extended, checks sent to the 
\bank. The company advertised in one thousand 
'Eastern papers; Bert handled the details of the 
dvertising. The company took options on three 
housand acres of land, planted it, built roads, set 
ut orchards and resold the small fruit-farms; 
ert went over each tract, made the blue-prints, 
built in the office windows a relief -map with every 
hill and tree in place, and filed all the papers 
according to a system of his own. The company 
sent an exhibit to Chicago; Bert planned the 
exhibit and saw it properly packed?^ 

' ' Bert ! A Henry Smith of Detroit writes he 11 
be in on the night train. Where 's our corre- 
spondence with him?" 

He reached into his files, took out the letters, 
and laid them at the speaker \s elbow. 

''Bert! How much was paid down on that 
McDowell sale?" 

''Twenty-one hundred and forty dollars; bal- 
ance at seven per cent, in three years. ' ' 

"Bert, did we tell that Omaha man— Where 's 
Bort, Miss Huelat?" 

"Gone to the bank, Mr. Cook." 



HERBERT HOOVER 87 

^^Oh, fish-hooks! Well, I '11 have to wait till 
he comes back." \ 

rWhen he was not answering questions, run- j 
nmg errands, multigraphing letters or seated at 
his high desk making maps, he lounged silently 
at the edge of conversation — his hands in the 
pockets of his gray suit, shoulders hunched a 
Kttle, a small round hat pulled down on his head 
—and listened. No one noticed him particularly ; 
no one explained business methods to him. He 
did not mind. Quietly, all the time, he put down 
rows of facts in the orderly note-book of his mind, 
added them, and filed away the totalsT^ ^ 

/The company was losing sales to other laild 
companies. Drawn by the Oregon Land Com^ 
pany's advertising, men arrived in Salem from\ 
the East, went to hotels, and were seized by rival 1 
salesmen. Oregon Land salesmen complained \ 
bitterly, but it had always been that way in the \ 
land business ; the sale was to the swiftest. 

Bert took a Saturday afternoon and made a I 
fist of all the empty furnished houses and pleas- \ 
ant rooms to rent in Salem. Then he presented a \ 
proposition to his uncle. He would meet all trains j 
with the buggy, take new-comers out at once and 
settle them in places less public than hotels, where 
the Oregon Land Company's salesmen could 
wrestle with them uninterrupted by rivals. He 
wanted the commissions for renting the houses. / 



f 88 THE MAKING OF 

'^ Ijle got themA The Oregon Land Company got 
the sales. It was as simple as that. But he was 
annoyed by the salesmen's exclamations: "It 
works like a charm! How did yon ever think of 
it, Bert! Why did n't we think of it months ago! 
If I 'd had that Nebraska crowd to themselves 
last August like I had Lamson last week I 'd have 

. made a sale of — " 

Why did men talk so much and think so little? 
\Jie considered taking a business course at 
\ night-school and tried it for a few weeks. But he 
gave up the idea because it cost him the evening 
lours in the office'l\ Lounging there between seven 
knd nine o'clock at night under the flare of the 
gas-light, in the crowd of men that came and went, 
or sitting behind locked doors at conferences of 
the partners, he learned more about business than 
he could from books. 

("One night in the company's second year he sat 
in a corner, hands in pockets, hat pulled down over 
his eyes, and listened to a conference with cred- 
itors. The company was solvent, but the momen- 
tum of its expansion had pushed it to the edge of 
safety. There were outstanding notes and op- 
tions that must be extended; there were payments 
overdue on farms whose purchasers must be car- 
ried by the company or the sales lost. At any one 
of a dozen points an unreasonable creditor could 

( precipitate the company's failure. 



HERBERT HOOVER 89 

But the talk grew excited. It became personal. 
Each man, trying to protect himself, afraid, sus- 
picious, raised his voice a little higher than the 
last. Fists were pounded on the tg^le. Tem- 
pers escaped control in the excitement^ 

^^Do you mean to insinuate that I am not an 
honest man?" 

.^^Well, didn't you say that—" 
r The lights went out. Confused by the sudden 
darkness, the antagonists united in complaint 
against the gas company. Lighted matches held 
to the open jets flickered and went out. They 
couldn't sit there talking in the dark. Why in 
tarnation could n 't a public-service company give 
some service! Might as well postpone the con- 
ference till next day. They groped their way 
around desks and chairs, got out into the street, 
and went home. Uncle John was about to lock 
the office door when a hand appeared in the aper- 
ture, and then the matter-of-fact countenance of 
Bert. He stepped out and locked the door with 
; his own key. 

^^Bert! Did thee turn out the lights?" 

**They were only running up the gas bill. 

^ There was no use in that kind of talk," said Bert, 

and getting on his bicycle he pedaled homeward, 

leaving the company's difficulties to be amicably 

adjusted next day. "> 

! The little horse-cars of the Salem street railway 

! 
i 



90 THE MAKING OF 

ambled along its tracks ouly at long intervals, 
but the space between the rails was tightly floored 
with fir boards that made an excellent path for 
bicycles. Bert rode home upon it through the 
darkness, passing the deserted two-story brick 
buildings of the main street where yellow pools of 
light lay under the occasional arc-light, turning 
into the residence section where magnificent 
houses of white-painted wood, ornamented with 
scroll-work, turrets, and panes of colored glass, 
stood far back on lawns guarded by cast-iron deer, 
and then pedaling past empty weed-grown lots 
toward Highland Friends' Addition. ^ New cot- 
tages were springing up there, on lots whose his- 
tory of selling and reselling he knew in every 
detail. He owned one himself, taken off its buy- 
er's hands at a reasonable discount and held for 
resale at a propitious moment.^ 

He passed Highland Friends' church, the 
nucleus of the subdivision, built by the Oregon 
Land Company on firm stone foundations and 
standing there to point with its scroll-decorated 
steeple toward the rewards of a righteous lite. 
Every Sunday morning he went to meetmg. His 
membership in Highland Friends' church was a 
real thing in his life. He did not accept it without 
further consideration, as a thing accomphshed; 
he thought about it. As he pedaled past the 
])uilding, a shadow against the starlit sky, he 



HERBEET HOOVER 91 

pondered the reasons that make men Christians 
and examined his own motives. He hoped that 
he was not a Christian only because he wanted to 
save his own soul; that would b^ nothing better 
than self-interest. 

He put his bicycle in its place in Uncle John's 
barn, across the street from the large white house 
where he lived. There were no lights in Grand- 
mother Minthorn's cottage of scalloped shingles. 
She and Sister May were asleep. He closed the 
barn doors, climbed the ladder to the barn attic, 
and lighted the oil lamp that stood on a table 
there. The bookcase he had made stood beside it, 
tilled with his books. He chose a text-book on 
geometry, took a pencil from his stock of well- 
sharpened ones, and pulling up the patched 
kitchen chair sat down to work. 

On the sloping shingle roof a spider swung to 
and fro, laboriously weaving with invisible silken 
strands a web that would be ready when dawn 
brought the day's opportunity for spiders. The 
lamp burned with a soft humming sound in the 
stillness. Bert's mind toiled over geometric lines 
and calculations. The hands of the battered 
alarm-clock moved with little jerks toward mid- 
night. The air grew colder. He turned up his 
coat collar, made one last attempt at conquering 
a stubborn Angle C, gave it up, and reached for an 
apple in a box beside the table. He set his teeth 



92 THE MAKING OF 

into it, and taking a sheaf of booklets from his 
coat pocket began turning them over, glancing at 
them. 

CHe was sixteen. Time to be choosing his uni- 
versity. That summer Theodore was going back 
to Iowa to enter Penn College. Bert considered | 
his own plans. He read the Penn College pros- 
pectus sent to Tad, and did not like itT} The family 
grieved because he wanted a university that em- 
phasized religion less and science more. His re- 
ligious views he could manage for himself ; what he 
wanted from a university were facts— especially 
facts about mathematics, geology, and mining. 
Through the Oregon Land Company's office there 
was a constant drift of men from the Oregon 
mountains, men who were miners or interested 
in mining. They showed pieces of petrified wood 
from the petrified forests, agates picked up on the 
jeweled Oregon beaches, bits of quartz, nuggets, 
curious rocks that revived Bert's never-lost inter- 
est in the secrets hidden in stones. Also, mining 
engineering paid. His one meeting with a suc- 
cessful mining engineer who had passed through 
Salem had impressed him with that fact. He had 
sent for literature from every university in the 
United States, and pored over it. 
rstanford, the new university about to open its 
doors in California, seemed best suited to his 
needs. It offered a good scientific course and 



HERBERT HOOVER 93 

made a special appeal to boys who must work 
their way. Entrance examinations would be held 
in Portland. He decided on Stanford. But could 
he pass the examinations?^ 

''Bert 's going to college this fall/' said one 
Salem business man to another. 

''Well, the Oregon Land Company '11 miss him. 
He 's pretty near the backbone of that office, I 
judge. B. S. Cook was telling me the other day 
they didn't know how they 'd get along without 
him. ' ' 

"I hear you're going to college, Bert," Mr. 
Williams, a banker, said one afternoon when Bert 
came into the bank. 

"I am, Mr. Williams." 

"Well, I wish you 'd try to get Fred interested 
in going with you. He ought to be going to col- 
lege, but he doesn't seem to take much interest 
in it." \ 

"I '11 be glad to do what I can, Mr. Williams." ' / 

He did not know Fred Williams very well. / 
Fred, the banker's son who went to school and to 
parties, who stood on the street corner with his 
I own crowd, jingling the loose money in his pockets 
of his good clothes, while Bert toiled over maps 
and blue-prints in the land-office, naturally was 
not one of his friends. But the university was a 
subject with which to begin conversation; Fred 
bored at the prospect, Bert diplomatically rousing 



94 THE MAKING OF 

\ enthusiasm. An^they went together to Portland 

for the entrance examinations.^ M 

j Fred was a good fellow. He'' made friends eas- ■ 
ily in the smoking-car, lounging confidently at 
ease, well dressed, smoking with the skill of long 
practice his good cigarettes. Bert listened to the - 
talk and felt himself very much out of it. It was 
a glimpse of a world to which he was not accus- 
tomed ; he was at a disadvantage. He sat isolated 
in the crowd, unnoticed, silently observing. Be- 
neath the surface impressions that he accumu- 
lated a substratum of his mind added up again 
his own equipment. Three years in the academy 
had given him the equivalent of two years of 
high school. He had gone through two books of 
geometry and done much miscellaneous reading 
by himself. The land-office had given him busi- 
ness training. C^ He had about eight hundred dol- 
lars in cash. If only he could pass the entrance 
examination he knew he could get through the 
V university somehow."^ 

Fred was accustomed to traveling. He knew « 
his w^ay about Portland very well indeed. He | 
stepped into the right hotel bus, joked with the 
driver, greeted the hotel clerk by name, and went 
out after supper, secure in his years of schooling, 
leaving Bert feverishly accumulating names and 
dates from a history book. 

Next day they faced the examination. Pro- 



I 



HERBERT HOOVER 95 

fessor Swain, a big man with a warm, kindly man- 
ner, was encouraging, but the questions he asked 
appalled Bert. The boy sat dumbfounded before 
a problem in geometry that revealed heights of 
mathematics he had never glimpsed. It must be 
solved, but howl He set his teeth and bent over 
it; his mind roused its every energy to combat; 
his muscles hardened, and the world became a 
rhomboid bisected laterally by unmanageable 
lines. Professor Swain's hand on his shoulder 
was an earthquake shock. 

''What seems to be the trouble!" Two ques- 
tions, an answer, and his ignorance stood revealed. 
He had studied only two books of geometry ; this 
was an original problem based on the fourth book. 

*'Come to my hotel this evening. Mrs. Swain 
and I should like to talk to you. ' ' 

He went, and he was self-possessed, quiet, and 
in the depths of his mind still determined. There 
were nearly four months before the university 
opened. Four months; two books of geometry. 
But he would fail, if he failed, still fighting. 
There were the barn attic and all the hours of the 
night. He said little, replying courteously to Pro- 
fessor Swain's questions and being polite to Mrs. 
Swain, a pleasant lady whose composed manner 
and fashionable bangs gave her an air of sophisti- 
cation. ''Could I take the examinations again 
later. Professor Swain? I want to try it again." 



96 THE MAKING OF 

He returned to Salem that night and on the tele- 
graph wires above the train a message traveled to 
Uncle John : 

Passing through Salem to-morrow afternoon. Cannot 
stop. Please meet train to discuss your nephew's 
entrance Stanford. 

On the station platform in two hurried moments 
Professor Swain gave Uncle John the verdict : 

^'Bert is not properly equipped to enter the uni- 
versity. He lacks two books of geometry, and he 
cannot pass in English. But tell him to make up 
as much as he can and to come to Stanford m 
September. He is the kind of boy the university 
wants, and Stanford will make concessions to get 
him. He may have to enter with conditions to 
make up, but we will see that he enters. You have 
a nephew to be proud of. Dr. Minthorn." 

^^Bert is a good boy," Uncle John admitted. 
*^I will give him your message. Professor Swain. 
I am indebted to you for your courtesy and 
interest." 

He returned to the office and found Bert filmg 
letters. ''You can leave that and go home and 
study, Bertie," he said. ''After this, take all the 
time you need from the office. Professor Swain 
wants you to make up two books of geometry and 

English." 

Life became a series of geometrical proposi- 



HERBERT HOOVER 97 

tions. Bert ate, drank, breathed geometry, and 
when sleep overcame him in the morning hours he 
dreamed geometry. The text -books accompanied 
him to the office, to the dinner-table, and back to 
the barn attic after supper. 

C Fred Williams, too, had failed to pass the math- \ 
ematics test, and his father offered to take Bert's 
Highland Addition lot off his hands for the money 
invested in it, if he would coach Fred in geometry. 
The money was a small addition to the hoard with 
which he was going out into the world.*") 

He was seventeen, a man now, ready to follow 
unaided the tradition of university education that 
had begun half a century earlier when Grand- 
mother Minthorn was left a widow, with Huldah a 
little girl beside her. He said nothing about this 
to Fred Williams, that debonair companion who 
was lavishly buying new suits and striped shirts 
in anticipation of college life, but he did not forget 
it. He was to be reminded of it again on the 
August day when they left together for California. 
j *^I often think that Huldah would like to see 
I thee now," Grandmother Minthorn said when he 
stooped to kiss her soft, withered cheek. ^^Thee 
has always been a good boy, Bertie. I shall pray 
that thee does a conscientious work.'' 
i * * Thee shall have cause to be proud of me some 
iday. Grandmother," he promised, with a smile 
j whimsical enough to cover his emotions. It was 



1 



98 HERBERT HOOVER 

not an emotion that a grown man cared to display, 
either to himself or to another college man like 
Fred, whom, when the train had started, he fol- 
lowed into the new world of the smoking-car. 



CHAPTEE III 

TWO nights and a day on the train. It was a 
long journey, and for the first time Bert 
Hoover knew the sensation of sleeping in a Pull- 
man berth, the pillows quivering beneath his head 
and the dark forests racing past the window. He 
ate in a dining-car, uncomfortable with a menu- 
card in his hand and a waiter at his elbow. Fore- 
tastes of the strange life to which he was going; 
glimpses of the many little difficulties before him. 
Canons and forests, peaks beyond peaks of the 
Coast Eange mountains, shifted and wheeled 
about the circling, climbing train. Little brown 
stations, lonely between depths of tree-tops and 

i heights of rocky cliffs. Mount Shasta's snow- 
tipped summit, gaunt against an orange evening 
sky. Night, and the mirrored windows reflected 
the yawning passengers, while a negro struggled 
with swaying green curtains, making up the 

I berths. A new world; he was not yet able to 

I move freely in it, but he would be some day. 

Morning on the level fertile lands of the Sacra- 

I mento Valley in California. Interminable yellow 
wheat-fields, vast expanses on which the great 

99 



100 THE MAKING OF 

granaries were small black dots. A gray mist 
over gray water; that was the edge of Suisun 
Straits, an arm of San Francisco Bay. Fisher- 
men's huts among the tules; long weed-tangled 
piers that were fish-traps; sea-gulls circling 
above them. Then Oakland, a ferry-boat larger 
than any house, the cold sea-wind against his face, 
and endless miles of San Francisco Bay with 
islands and tall-masted ships; then the Ferry 
Building, and Market Street opening impressively 
before him. 

San Francisco was a bewildering metropolis, a 
confusion of buildings and people and carriages 
and rattling cable-cars. Policemen directed him 
and Fred Williams ; with relief, his manly dignity 
not destroyed by any mistake, he found himself 
on the train carrying him away from it all, toward 
Stanford University at last. 

The train ran through a golden, happy country. 
Little yellow poppies fluttered thick upon the 
right-of-way; beyond them wheat-fields again, 
golden in the August sun, spattered with the shade 
of low-spreading oaks ; and close at hand, against 
the deep blue sky, the soft, round, treeless foot- 
hills of California, yellow-gold and golden-brown 
in the midsummer drought, rolling up to the dark 
redwood-crested mountain wall that stood between 
the bay and the ocean. Little towns, gay with 
geraniums and marigolds and palms, went past; 



HERBERT HOOVER 101 

slender lines of young eucalyptus glittered silvery- 
green beside the track, and silvery-blue at the edge 
of the land the waters of San Francisco Bay fol- 
lowed mile after mile, refusing to be left behind. 
This was a country bewildering in its beauty, its 
softness, its luxuriance, a country such as he had 
never imagined. 

^ ' Menlo Park ! All out for Stanford Univers- 
ity!'' Beside the track stood the big vehicle 
labeled ^^ University Buss.'' The word did not 
trouble Bert. Spelling interested him not at all. 
But later it was to give him many an anxious hour. 
The driver estimated the two boys with a shrewd 
eye. 

^^You fellows going to Stanford! Buildings 
ain't finished yet, you know; you can't stay 
there." 

' ' But we 're going to Adelante Villa. ' ' 

''All right, hop in. I '11 take you 's far 's the 
university. ' ' 

A dusty road, paralleling the railway track, led 
them past stubble-fields and vineyards. As they 
crossed a wooden bridge over a deep dry arroyo, 
the driver motioned toward the left. 

''That 's the tree the ranch is named for — Palo 
Alto — Spanish for tree," he explained. 

The redwood stood beside the railroad bridge 
just beyond them, towering into the August blue, 
a noble enough tree, but not so splendid in its 






102 THE MAKING OF 

branches as the firs he had left in Oregon. This , 
new country hadn't everything. | 

Just beyond the bridge great gates stood open 
— ^the university doubtless. But the team went 

by. 

''The Stanford residence is up there," com- 
mented the driver. ''The boy is in a vault near 
the house, but the new mausoleum is about finished 
in them trees yonder.'' 

To the left ran the single track and beyond r 
stretched the shining grain-fields toward a hor 
izon misty in the heat. Bert noted a wooden- 
canopied bench beside the track in the wilderness, 
of yellow. "Palo Alto. Train stops on signal," 
said a sign. Just there the horses turned sharply 
to the right and headed up a long straight ave- , 
nue through a grove of pines and eucalyptus.l| 
Novel little fan palms were being set out along this 
avenue. Far ahead, beyond the arboretum, lay 
the shining fields again, and there Bert could see, 
low upon the sun-scorched plain, the creamy yel- 
low walls and glistening red-tiled roofs of anJ 
arcaded building whose towers rose bright against 
the curving lines of misty blue and green hills. 

"That there 's the university," said the driver, 
pointing ahead with his whip. "Over there, to 
the left, that big building, is the dormitory, but it 
ain't ready. The white barns, up there to the 
right, is the stock-farm — finest race-horses in the 



HERBERT HOOVER 103 

world raised right there; that 's the governor's 
hobby. Adelante Villa 's up beyond there. You 
boys going to stay there, you say? Nice place, I 
hear. Haunted, though. They say the woman 
that *s buried in the dooryard spooks round at 
night. Some of the professors are staying there 
with their wives. They 're Eastern folks, but 
they 're all right so far 's I know. Well, here we 
are. The ride '11 cost you one dollar apiece. So- 
long, boys. Good luck." 

The university ! He stood in a litter of chipped 
sandstone and looked at it. A quadrangle of cor- 
ridors. Mission-arched, rising above piles of lum- 
ber and vats of cement. Busy workmen spread- 
ing the cement floor beneath the arches, climbing 
ladders, shouting directions. The sound of ham- 
mers and saws, of sand gritting on slrovels, of the 
clanging, puffing locomotive that ran on spur- 
tracks laid through the grain-fields. Everywhere 
activity, creating, building toward the future, 
hopeful, hurrying. No traditions, no past. Only 
to-day, and to-day flung back in the race toward 
to-morrow. America. Stanford ! 

He thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and 
his jaw set hard. No obstacle of examination 
would keep him out of all this. He was here, and 
he was going to stay. 

Adelante Villa was a large old house smothered 
in dense vines and damp with the shade of 



104 THE MAKING OF 

cypresses. Its lawn was a tangle of neglected 
weeds in which flowers struggled to survive, and 
the steps creaked when stepped upon. In the dim 
hall a bright-eyed, flushed young woman welcomed 
the boys with an ease before which Bert's awk- 
wardness was dumb. She was Miss Pearson, who 
was to coach him in English until Stanford opened 
and Adelante Villa became a girPs boarding- 
school. 

''Come right in, boys! So this is the Mr. Hoo- 
ver to whom I Ve been writing ! I 'm glad 
to see you ; Professor Swain 's been telling me 
about you. He and Mrs. Swain are staying with 
us until their house is finished. You '11 meet them 
at dinner. This is your room. It isn't quite 
ready yet; the blankets haven't come. But we 
are getting the house in order as rapidly as possi- 
ble. You won't mind a few discomforts just at 
first, I know." 

No, he did not mind a few discomforts. When 
she had left him in the high, old-fashioned room 
he unpacked his bag, put books and paper on the 
rickety marble-topped table, and, choosing the 
most solid chair, sat down to attack his geometry. 
His first job was to pass those entrance examina- 
tions. 

Miss Fletcher coached him in mathematics, Miss 
Pearson in English. He worked hard at his 



HERBERT HOOVER 105 

books, but he learned much besides in the intervals 
of study. He helped those two young, enthusi- 
astic Radcliffe women struggle with the problems 
of making the old house habitable; he took care 
of Jim, the horse, and drove the two miles to 
Menlo for groceries and candles and the mail. In 
the evenings there were talks with Professor 
Swain, that big, hearty, friendly man, and with 
his wife and Professor Anderson, of the English 
Department, — all from the East and all laughing 
at their difficulties and enthusiastic about the new 
university. It was Mr. Anderson ^s idea that no 
student should be graduated from college without 
being able to express himself well in written Eng- 
lish. Bert was uneasy about this. Composition 
was so much harder than mathematics. There 
was a memorable visit to President Jordan at 
Escondite Cottage, east of the buildings, where 
he felt the fire and idealism of the great man who 
was creating Stanford. Unobtrusive, speaking 
very little, Bert listened and watched and knew 
that he was part of a big, democratic undertaking. 
September. He passed in mathematics, failed 
in English. He was not interested in English, 
though he had tried to learn enough to earn the 
necessary credits in it. But he could enter Stan- 
ford, majoring in mechanical engineering, with 
the English conditions to work off later. So that 



106 THE MAKING OF 

was all right. Because Laurie Tatum, his guard- 
ian, lived there, he registered from Springdale, 
Iowa. 

He moved from Adelante Villa to Encina Hall, 
on the campus. The huge empty building echoed 
the sound of his feet on the corridor floors, still 
sticky with varnish. He was the first college man 
to sleep there, lighting his way to a shivery bed 
with a candle, for the lights were not yet in and 
the red blankets woven from the wool of Senator 
Stanford's own sheep were still in the crates. 
In the mornings he was awakened by the clanging 
triangle, calling the workmen from their blankets 
in the bunk-house to the last feverish labor of 
finishing the university buildings. 

Arch upon arch the long corridors stretched 
beneath their red-tiled roofs. The curving 
shadows made a pattern on the sunny pavements. 
Opening, closing, opening again beside him as he 
walked, the archways disclosed beyond the low 
green of the vineyard and the gold of stubble the 
gracious lines of the hills against the sapphire 
and pearl of the California sky. Out by the whitr* 
barns of the stock-farm eucalyptus trees shoo! 
silvery leaves in the morning sunlight, and the re( 
wheels of Senator Stanford's buggy made a spol 
of color as he drove on his morning round of 
inspection. It was very good to be alive on those 
mornings ; very good to be alive and in Stanford. 



HERBERT HOOVER 107 

Bert had a job in the registrar's office now and 
already students were coming to register. Well- 
dressed, care-free, debonair yonng men with 
fathers in tow, they stopped at his desk and looked 
at him in surprise. *^I didn't come here to talk 
to you ! ' ' 

He saw himself in their eyes, a country boy with 
a bad complexion, in a cheap ready-made suit. 

^^I 'm here to register you, and I 'm going to 
do it. Name, please T' They registered. At 
any rate, he did not care for their opinion of him. 
He knew his own handicaps and his own abilities. 
He knew what he wanted and that he would get 
it. This concealed hardihood of purpose he 
shared with other students who registered — men 
six, eight, nine years older than he, who, like him, 
had worked hard for the privilege of studying at 
Stanford. He understood these men and they 
understood him. He would have friends enough. 

There was a growing stir of life in the rawly 
new buildings. Workmen took down the last scaf- 
folding, removed the guarding planks from the 
dry cement pavements, spread the last bit 
of asphalt in the great three-acre quadrangle. 
Carpenters finished woodwork and hung doors, in 
an odor of fresh varnish and newly cut wood. 
The professors' families were moving into the row 
of houses that rose gaunt from the cracked adobe 
across the field from the big dormitory. Ten 



108 THE MAKING OF 






houses there were and some one called The Row 
the ^^Decalo^e.'' More students were finding! 
quarters in Encina; a piano was installed, tablesl 
and chairs appeared in the dining-room. Strange 
faces multiplied. In the office he knew the fac- 
ulty's perplexities : one hundred students had beenj 
expected ; four hundred had come. 

On the eve of the great day when Stanford was; 
to open the vast lobby of Encina was a blur of 
people. Three hundred young college men, try- 
ing their newly fledged wings of independence 
with timid bravado, thronged the great staircase 
and eddied in the swirling crowd below. Three 
hundred strange faces — laughing, serious, beetle- 
browed, sunnily good-humored, many of them 
*' bearded like the prof," — bare heads, gray- 
capped heads, heads wearing derby hats ; suits of 
all sizes, styles, and colors, mixed and mingled 
before his gaze with a pandemonium of sound;, 
high, nervous voices, gruff, low-toned greetings,] 
scraps of talk— ^^ Hello, there. White Plains!"] 
''Hello, yourself, Sacramento!" '' — not so bad. 
Dad '11 send me the furniture I — " '' — getting a 
hundred a month from home. He 's the son of — " 
Beneath.it all a ceaseless shuffle of feet, and from 
the piano in the second-floor alcove a crashing of 
chords, loud pedal down, and tenor and bass 
voices, sounding down the great stair-well : 



HERBERT HOOVER 109 

''There is a tavern in the town, in the town, 
And there my true love sits him down — " 

<*But, fellows, we Ve got to get up a yell for 
to-morrow ! How 's this— Ye Gods ! Listen a 
minute, can't jouV Megaphoned voice between 
cupped hands: ''Hey, fellows! Listen to this for 
a yell ! All together — now ! 

''Wah hoo! Wah hoo! 
L! S! J! U! 
STANFORD!" 

A new world, strange, novel, bewildering. He 
stood silent, hands in his pockets, close to the cor- 
ridor wall, like a stout little island in the wash of 
breakers. He looked at it all, an outsider, very 
much alone, unshaken but isolated. He had never 
sung with a bunch of fellows nor heard a piano 
played like that nor slapped a man familiarly on 
the shoulder ; it was not in him to stand up before 
a crowd and yell through cupped hands at it, com- 
pelling it to listen. He was a world in himself, 
rounded and self-centered, but the penalty for 
such completeness was the ache of loneliness that 
he doggedly concealed. 

Then out of the whirl of strangeness suddenly 
[came a face that he recognized, and a heavy, low 
^ voice t,hat hailed him. '* Hello, there, Bert 
S Hoover!'' 

i 



110 THE MAKING OF 






^*Hello!'' he responded. It was Henry Pierce, 
son of the richest wheat-grower in Yamhill 
County, Oregon. They had not known each other 
in Salem, but the high-school boy had often noted 
the real-estate boy on his speeding bicycle. The 
gulf between their far-separated lives was bridged 
now; they were both sons of Stanford. 

^^Glad to see you down here, Bert. Looks like 
things '11 happen, huhT' 

*^Yes.'' 

* * See you to-morrow, old man ; folks waiting for 
me. Come around to seventy-five if you can." 

^^ Thanks. I will.'' 

Ten o'clock. He joined the line waiting for 
candles at Mr. Fesler's office, and went soberly to 
bed. To-morrow work would begin. Twenty 
dollars a month for board and lodging ! He would 
have to make money. Couldn't use up all his 
principal; he 'd need some money when he grad- 
uated. At least he must be sure of his four 
years. Surely the professors would have odd 
jobs that would help out. He wouldn't wait on 
table : that was for fellows who had not had busi- 
ness experience. Well, it was great to think of all 
there was ahead of him. Conditions to work off 
— bother English, anyhow! Good fellow^, Henry 
Pierce ; worth while knowing him. 

He blew out the candle. Night came softly in 
at the window of Room 38. Stars, and flat wide 



HERBERT HOOVER 111 

ifields, and a dark clump of oaks. The big build- 
ing was all astir around him, like a great hotel. 
jMany feet went along the porch past his window 
and down the uncarpeted hallways, doors 
slammed, voices answered voices. Faintly from 
an upstairs corridor a long way off came the full- 
i throated yell, 

' ' Wah hoo ! Wah hoo ! ' ' 

It was as though an owl had barked. With a 
contented grin, Hoover, Stanford '95, rolled over 
in the darkness and slept. 

Meadow-larks singing in the grain-fields awoke 
him to the opening day. He washed gingerly in 
water dark brown in color and smell, for some- 
thing was still wrong with the water-supply. 
Breakfast eaten, he wandered, curious, over to 
the Quad. The sun was now warm in a cloudless 
sky. From the asphalt pavement of the vast en- 
closure a tarry odor rose to mingle with the smell 
of varnish and tar-weed in the fresh air of that 
October morning. At the west . entrance decor- 
ators from the city were putting the finishing 
touches to the speaker's stand. Palms and bam- 
boo filled the closed archway and masked the lum- 
ber; wagon-loads of grape-vines heavy with clus- 
tered fruit, purple, green, hung from the rails. 
From under the keystone of the great arch a paint- 
ing of young Stanford looked down upon these 



112 THE MAKING OF 

activities in his memory. Bert thought of the 
great museum building, now ready to house won- 
derful collections, the nucleus of which were 
things that this youngster had gathered. He 
remembered certain childish collections in Iowa, 
and shrugged his shoulders. Workmen in over- 
alls were setting out hundreds of camp chairs. 
The professors hastened up and down The Row in 
their shirt-sleeves, carrying pails of water from 
the one tank that supplied all their houses. The 
atmosphere was alert with expectancy. 

By half-past nine wagons and carriages were 
driving into the quadrangle. At ten, special 
trains from San Francisco ran in on the freight 
tracks and discharged their crowds in front of the 
main entrance. At half -past ten, every seat was 
filled ; a solid acre of people waited in the hot sun- 
shine, many hundreds more walked up and down 
under the arches. Camera men from the city 
newspapers were erecting tall tripods or climbing 
to vantage-points on the roofs. The professors 
appeared, serene and composed, their shirt-sleeves 
hidden by immaculate coats. Great and powerful 
men were on that platform, men who had come to 
do honor to the new university, to its pioneer 
class, — yes, to do honor to him, Bert Hoover, mem- 
ber of that class ! 

He found a seat among those reserved for stu- 
dents, a hard seat in the broiling sun, so far from 



I 



HERBERT HOOVER 113 

the stage that he could not hear clearly what was 
said. For an hour he sat there, without moving, 
watching those men rise, and speak, and sit down 
again. He saw President Jordan, young, keen, 
even-voiced, talking beneath the shade of an 
umbrella held by Professor Swain. Both men 
were tall and impressive. Already he felt that 
both were his friends. The big professor then 
held the umbrella over little Dr. Martin Kellogg, 
president of the .University of California, at Berk- 
eley. Of course Berkeley was their rival. Bert 
grinned at the sight, but not for long. Senator 
Stanford rose, with Mrs. Stanford beside him. 

Senator Stanford !— the man who had made pos- 
sible this university, the man who was giving this 
great opportunity to four hundred boys and girls. 
Senator Stanford himself had once been poor; 
by his own efforts he had made himself a multi- 
millionaire. He had built a railroad that made 
the Pacific Coast part of America ; millions had 
been poured into his hands. Now, with his only 
son no longer living to be blessed with this wealth, 
he was pouring it out to the world. ''The chil- 
dren of California shall be our children.'' 

Somehow Senator Stanford and his wife, stand- 
ing there in memory of the dead boy, to give all 
that might have been his to other less fortunate 
children, became linked up with Bert Hoover's 
own life, with his own ambitions. Hard work. 



114 THE MAKING OF 

thrift, accomplishment— and service. This was 
the pioneer heritage, the American spirit. Get 
much in order to give greatly. In this lavishly 
rich world the strong individual, industrious, 
hard-willed, deserved and won great wealth and 
gave it back in ways that served all humanity. 
This was the real success. Before him on the 
palm-walled platform, beneath the sandstone 
arches and the red-tiled roofs softly glowing 
against the bright blue sky, Senator Stanford 
stood as the living embodiment of a noble, suc- 
cessful life. Work, success, service,— the Amer- 
ican spirit, the spirit of Stanford ! 

Some words that Dr. Jordan had said that day 
rushed back into his mind. ^'Theirs is the power 
to live after death, working and shaping benefi- 
cently in the minds of many, keeping their hands 
mightily on human affairs after the flesh has been 
dust for years.'' Yes, death did not end service; 
if you accomplished enough in life you could send 
its effects on after you, as this man was doing. 
Suddenly he thought of his father, stopped so 
early in his work, yet leaving that little fund from 
the business and the insurance, which his mother 
had striven so hard to save for his education and 
a good part of which Laurie Tatum still held for 
him. In their own small way they too had had 
that power ; they were living after death with him 
as he sat there in the glowing Quad with his big 



I 



HERBERT HOOVER 115 

chance before him, his own efforts to be joined 
by theirs. No, it was not alone the Stanfords who 
were helping him to his training for a successful 
life. Upon his small affairs was the touch of 
hands that had been dust for years. 

As the quick tears, which bothered him some- 
times, came to his eyes, the students surged to 
their feet and together with one voice, they woke 
the echoes of the arched corridors: 

''Wahhoo! Wah hoo! 
L! S! J! U! 
STANFORD!" 

The last sharp sound of the repeated yell smote 
the air. The crowd rose, moved slowly, eddied 
into groups. Bert Hoover, making for the shade 
of the corridor, ran into Henry Pierce and Sam 
Collins. They hailed him joyously : 

^ * Come on. Hoover ! now for the grub ! ' ' 

They broke into a trot, headed for the clamor- 
jing bunch at Encina. ^^Grub!^' they shouted to 
[others as they ran. But their hearts were high 
'and free. They were full-fledged college men. 
'Stanford belonged to them ! And they to it. 

Out of the many-colored current of college life 
he took what he wanted. Mathematics, with his 
ifriend Professor Swain ; he liked both of them and 
he registered in three classes of Math. Wood- 
working in the airy brick shop building back of the 



116 THE MAKING OF 

Quad, with Buchanan, the foreman. And linear 
and free-hand drawing, because Professor Gale 
required these of his students in mechanical engi- 
neering. As yet there was no geology, but the 
register said that Dr. John Casper Branner, State 
Geologist of Arkansas, was coming the following 
semester, just after New Year's. Bert had set 
his heart on geology. When Dr. Branner should 
arrive he would be in his first class, if that were 
possible. 

Meanwhile in the lobby of Encina, under the 
arches of the moonlit Quad, up in the fellows' 
rooms after dinner, he watched the formless mass 
of Stanford students slowly becoming an organ- 
ization. He saw a bit of society in the process of 
making itself. 

Groups formed slowly. The very nature of 
Stanford, being pioneering, was democratic. 
Freshmen and professors labored together, with 
inadequate materials and high hopes, to build a 
new university. Many of the profs roomed in the 
hall. There had not yet come the leisure and 
plenty that develop class distinctions ; the atmos- 
phere was one of immediate, practical effort. 
Pragmatic. The new word, expressing the one 
contribution to philosophy that blossomed from 
the hard experience of the American pioneer, ex- 
pressed also the spirit of Stanford and the phil- 
osophy of Bert Hoover. Truth and right were 



HERBERT HOOVER 117 

not abstractions ; they were qualities of the prac- 
I tical thing, the thing that ** worked.'' Theories, 
ideals, plans, machines were submitted to the same 
test. Were they of immediate practical service? 
If they were, they were right. Hard work was 
right ; thrift was right ; individual freedom, indi- 
j vidual initiative were right. 

Still, though slowly, the groups formed. The 
! beginnings of the glee-club were there, in the 
bunch of fellows who hung around the piano, and 
strummed banjos and mandolins in the moonlit 
corridors of the Quad. There was the athletic 
crowd, already kicking and batting balls around 
in the grain-fields in front of the scaffolding of 
the new gymnasium, and wondering if there would 
be contests with the quarter-century-old college 
across the bay. The ^^ angels'' of Roble dormi- 
tory were exerting a social influence. Already 
the fellows in Encina had proposed an evening 
party and sent an invitation to Roble. But the 
girls, learning that the boys were practising with 
piano and violin in anticipation of dancing, felt 
that such festivity would not be in accord with the 
Stanford spirit. 

^^It will get into the papers, and people will 
think we 're in a hurry for such things," the 
*' angels" decided, and sent a note declining 
Encina Hall's invitation. Whereupon, after an 
indignation meeting, the boys retorted with a curt 



118 THE MAKING OF m\ 

notification that owing to circumstances over 
which they had no control the invitation was with- 
drawn. 

All these things Bert Hoover observed, loung- 
ing about the halls, silent and unobtrusive as ever, 
hands in pockets and shoulders hunched a little. 
In the afternoons before dinner he drifted into 
the Den of Iniquity, Room 20, where sounds of 
howling mirth or crashing furniture testified that 
the fellows were raising Cain as usual. He 
walked in quietly, settled into a comfortable chair, 
and picked up one of Nat Ellery 's Eastern papers. 
No matter how the noise surged about him, he 
could read without hearing it. 

**Come out of it, you darned dig!'' said Bud 
Frankenfield, punching him affectionately. 
''You '11 dry up and blow away." 

"Well, you do the blowing all right. Bud," he 
replied, "but I guess you '11 never dry up." And 
he grinned while the others yelled. Then he saa| 
cheerfully absorbing the New York and European 
news, with one ear open to the arguments around 
him. 

"I tell you it is n't right, fellows. We ought to 
kick about it. Look at the hot-cakes— seventeen 
deep in a tin dish. The bottom ones— a hog 'd 
turn up his nose to look at 'em. And that tomb- 
stone pudding four times a week. Makes me 
sick!" Zion, gesticulating from his seat on the 



HERBERT HOOVER 119 

table-comer, spoke with passion. ^*I say, let 's 
do something about it ! We 're paying, are n 't we, 
for—'' 

Nat Ellery, slim, quick and high-strung, struck 
in: 

' ^ Oh, shut up, Zion ! Where 's your gratitude ? 
Did you ever get beans cooked as many ways 
before? Hey! there 's the gong!" Pell-mell, 
they tumbled out of the Den of Iniquity and were 
swallowed in the clamor of the dining-room. The 
food was poorly cooked and badly served, but Bert 
ate very little, anyway. Seldom speaking, he 
broke into a low chuckle now and then at the 
repartee that flew across the table. But when 
the uncertain lights failed suddenly and baked 
potatoes began to fly, he dodged them equably 
and took no part in the rough-house. What was 
the sense of wasting energy in throwing food 
around ? 

The corridors of the Quad, beautiful in the 
misty twilight, murmured with the low talk and 
lagging footsteps of couples waiting there. 
Down toward Roble a mandolin tinkled sadly and 
a voice rose plaintively, *^ There 's a secret in my 
heart, sweet Marie ! ' ' The soft winter air, moist 
with a memory of first rain and fragrant with 
young grass and eucalyptus trees, blew across the 
open fields. Oh, it was great to be alive; to be 
alive and in Stanford! 



120 THE MAKING OF 

The new year opened auspiciously, for with it j 
came the heralded geologist from Arkansas. Dr. 
Branner proved to be another big fellow, like 
Jordan and Swain, thickly bearded, with an ex- 
pression that reminded Bert of an eagle. He j 
brought with him several young men who had been ■ 
working under him on the state survey of Ark- 
ansas. These men registered at Stanford for 
graduate work under Branner. Bert saw several 
of them at work installing the geological labora- 
tory in the rooms next to President Jordan and 
the registrar. He had gone to Dr. Branner and 
told him of his desire to register in geology. Dr. 
Branner ^s class in Geology 1 called for five hours 
a week and freshmen were welcome. Bert 
dropped drawing and plunged, delighted, into this 
fascinating new acquaintance with the earth. Its 
secrets were opened to him: he saw disclosed the 
vast epochs of time, the seons of nature's blind, 
wasteful endeavor to create a world and people it. 
It was annoying to feel languid and spiritless 
when there was so much work to be done. The 
world about him was full of energy, expressed m 
lush grass, in glistening little new leaves on every 
tree and shrub. Every prospect pleased and only 
he was feeling mean in the February sunshine ; his 
skin showed a kind of rash, he was uncomfortable 
even listless. One afternoon, wondermg what 
was the matter, he went over to the men's gym- 



HERBEET HOOVER 121 

nasium and asked the physical director for advice. 
The doctor smiled indulgently. 

*^You are evidently a nature-lover, like Pro- 
fessor Griggs. There was a paper on the door 
this morning saying ^Professor Griggs will not 
meet his classes this morning.' Fact is, he is suf- 
fering like yourself from rhustoxicodendronitis." 
The director smiled again at the blank look on the 
freshman's face. '^Poison-oak, that is. Take 
jthis and apply it to the places that itch." 

Bert took the medicine and went over to Encina, 
meadow-larks laughing at him as he went. In 
jRoom 38 he anointed himself dutifully and then, 
out of sorts with life generally, he crawled into 
bed in the uncurtained alcove. Next morning he 
did not get up and finally the doctor came in to 
see him. The rash was now everywhere on his 
lanky body. This time there were no smiles and 
no long words. 

"Measles!'' ejaculated the doctor. 

Ten days later Bert emerged, blinking, from 
the room whence his room-mate had unceremoni- 
lously fled. He was feeling well enough, but his 
eyes were acting queerly. At the doctor 's urging 
ihe went up to the city and was fitted to glasses. 
'*You probably won't have to wear them long," 
the oculist encouraged him. 

This meant money gone for misfortunes. But 
be was doing pretty well with the agency for the 



122 THE MAKING OF 

Red Star Laundry, in Encina. At first he had to 
gather the laundry bags and to distribute the 
paper-wrapped parcels, but now he was getting 
this done for him and his business was to keep the 
accounts up to the minute. Collections were not 
so very difficult, except where the boys had been 
up to the city and there was no money for him— 
despite the goodly sums entered to the account of 
* laundry" in the expense accounts sent home. 

*' 'Lo, Bert! Going up for the game?" 

''If I can manage it, you bet!" 

The first football game, the first time Stanford's 
fresh new cardinal would wave above a contest 
field in glorious defiance of California's blue-and- 
gold ! He could not afford to go, but he could not 
afford to miss it. A dollar and a quarter for rail- 
way fare; ten cents for the street cars; a ticket 
to the bleachers ; luncheon at a cafe ; a bit of red 
ribbon for his buttonhole; dinner and the the- 
ater party afterward— five dollars would be gone, 
a week's board and room. He had had no 
time to watch the team practice in the spring dusk, 
but the very air he breathed was electric with the 
spirit of this contest. The first game ! Could he, 
a loyal Stanford man, stay away from that? 

No. He saw the special train swing up the 
spur-track opposite Encina and the committee 
busily decorating it with cardinal bunting and he 



HERBERT HOOVER 123 

was in the cheering, riotous mob that poured from 
the train at Valencia Street Station late that 
March morning and doAvn into the noisy confusion 
of invaded San Francisco. He swung on the run- 
ning-board of the cable-car that crawled up the 
Haight Street hills through miles of gray wooden 
houses to the Olympic Club grounds opposite the 
park, and in the pushing, surging crowd he got 
through the gates and found his place in the stand. 

'^Rah! Rah! Rah! 
Rah! Rah! Rah! 

Rah ! Rah ! 
STANFORD!" 

' His jell was part of one roar of sound from 
four hundred throats, drowning in his ears the 
derisive '^ Ha! Ha! Ha !'^ of California. Over- 
head the blue sky, the March sun beating down 
obligingly on thousands of young heads, on hun- 
dreds of banners, cardinal and blue-and-gold. A 
yelling, hooting, cheering, stirring crowd. There 
on the field Stanford's own, Stanford men, ready 
to fight for Stanford against a team averaging 
fifteen pounds heavier. 

''Great day, isn't it!'' 

''Fine." 

' ' I wonder why they don 't get started. ' ' 

Conference on the field. Captain Foulks of 
California, Captain Whittemore of Stanford, 
heads together. A pause. A restlessness 



1 



124 THE MAKING OF J 

spreading. The college yells again. And again l| 
But questions running along the tiers of seats. 

^^Is something wrong? Why don't the, 
start?'' 

'^ Is n't it time the game began?" 

^^Half an hour late already. What 's the mat- 
ter?" 

^^ Funny, isn't it, Bert?" 

*^Yes." 

*^What do you think 's happened?" 

The answer was spreading slowly, from seat to 
seat along the packed rows. ^ * Nobody thought toi 
bring a football!" 

'^Well, wha'd'y 'think about that, Bert?" A. 
sound like a sigh went over the massed crowds;, 
they were settling down to wait the hour, sixty 
long minutes, for the lazy cable-cars to bring upi 
the ball from Market Street. ' 

*^I think we need some sort of a system." 

* ^ Oh, well, Bert, you know they 've got too muchj 
to think about. ' ' ■ 

'^Yes. That 's the reason." i 

But even his clear sanity was lost when the game 
began. Turmoil. Shouting. Fearful suspense- 
running along the nerves like a chill. Yell after 
yell of triumph shaking the air. 

Victory! Victory for Stanford! Victory for 
the Stanford spirit! Fourteen to ten for Stan- 
ford ! Drag home your blue-and-gold in the dust, 



HERBERT HOOVER 125 



iBerkeley. The youug university has shown what 
your quarter-century-old haughtiness was worth! 
Stanford! Wow! 

Hoarse, exhausted with shouting yet shouting 
still, intoxicated with the crowd's intoxication, he 
marched with the fellows down the hills and into 
Market Street. The town was theirs, the world 
was theirs, the universe was theirs. Fourteen to 
ten, for Stanford ! 

Dinner at a restaurant rocking with noise. 
*^The Spider and the Fly" at the Bush Street 
Theatre. Then the special train at midnight, 
along with the happy team. Five dollars nearly 
gone, careful little figures in the account book. 
But it was worth it. Glory, it was worth it 1 

Five days later Senator and Mrs. Stanford came 
home from Washington. The senator's red buggy 
wheels flashed once more in the sunlight as he 
made his morning rounds of the stock-farm. The 
word rang through Encina : ''I '11 tell you, fellows ! 
Let 's give them a serenade to-night." 

Mandolins and guitars twanged to tuning 
thumbs. The tramp of four hundred feet on the 
road between the vineyard and the windows of the 
Stanford house softly yellow through the foliage 
ahead. The windows grew larger, sharp-edged; 
their light dimly illumined the wide veranda. 

*^Sh! Shut up, there! Want to give us 



126 THE MAKING OF 

away?" the leader's whisper hissed through the 
shuffling crowd. ''Keep still, can't you! Eeady 
now? All right. Now, all together — " 

' ' We 11 rush, we 11 rush, we 11 rush the ball along ; 
A kick, a shove, we 11 send it through the throng." 

Bravely the mandolins, the banjos, and the 
guitars beat out the tune and loudly rang the 
voices, awakening the rabbits and the quail in the 
arboretum. Bert did not sing ; he had never tried 
to sing, but there under the stars he lifted up his 
voice with the others as he had lifted it in town, 
for he was a Stanford man. 

''While we are shouting for Stanford!" 

The dark veranda was suddenly flooded with 
radiance from a ceiling light and there in the door- 
way was the gray-haired senator, dignified and 
stately, with a voice that was a little unsteady : 

''Thank you, gentlemen. I — thank you. Mrs. 
Stanford and I wish to — We 'd be glad to have 
you come in." 

They walked soberly and respectfully through 
the hall, into the library. Two hundred fellows, 
they almost filled it. Bert backed against the wall 
and Lester Hinsdale backed against him. In a 
hollow square, three boys deep, the serenaders 
stood, lining the walls. California's children, 
come to fill an empty place. The senator stood 
rather helplessly before them, clearing his throat. 



HERBERT HOOVER 127 

Then Mrs. Stanford, in her rich black dress with 
its touches of purple, looking as though she were 
about to cry, put out her hands : 

^ ^ Oh, my dear young gentlemen ! We were just 
leaving Washington when the news came. I can't 
tell you how delighted we were to hear of the great 
victory in baseball!'' A little shudder ran 
through the ranks, while two hundred minds cried 
silently, ' ' football ! ' ' 

^'And which is Mr. ClemansT' The moment- 
ary coldness melted in enthusiasm. Twenty 
hands pushed forward the blushing full-back. 
The senator shook his hand ; Mrs. Stanford shook 
his hand and for an exciting moment seemed about 
to kiss him. Then, standing with a hand on the 
hero 's shoulder, the senator spoke to his collective 
sons. 

He spoke gravely and earnestly, urging them all 

to practise just those virtues that had been 

preached to Bert Hoover since his earliest infancy. 

''And remember," he said, at the end: ''upon 

the individual efforts of each of you mainly de- 

I pends your future success in life. All we can do 

} for you is to place the opportunity within your 

I reach. A generous education should be the birth- 

I right of every American citizen. The opportunity 

I is yours ; it rests with you to grasp and improve 

! it. Remember that life is above all practical. 

j You are here to fit yourself for a useful career. 



128 THE MAKING OF 

Mrs. Stanford and I want you to know that in each 
individual student we feel a parental interest. ' ' j 
His words somehow were finer than on the open- 
ing day, more impressive here in this quiet library. , 
But his presence spoke louder than his words. ! 
He stood there a big, powerful man, a man hon- 
ored by a place in his country's Senate, and he 
seemed the symbol of the practical worth of the 
virtues that he preached. He stood for an honest 
success, well earned ; great wealth, well used. 

Next month came the victory in the first game 
of baseball and the gleeful nightgown parade that 
celebrated it, a ghostly drill of triumph over the 
road to Palo Alto, now becoming a town. Bei-t 
was only mildly interested. The real concern of 
life lay in the chance of going to Arkansas with 
Newsom, one of the older men, and getting work 
on the survey, for all it would mean to him in 
experience and money. Commencement Week ar- 
rived, an occasion of interest for the handful of 
seniors from other colleges, taking their degrees 
from the new university, but of little importance 
to the freshman hordes, headed for home. He had 
passed with flying colors in all the subjects he 
cared about, but English IB was left to drag 
behind him through another year. And now the 
Arkansas dream was coming true and he was off 
to work in geology and to be paid for it ! 



HERBERT HOOVER 129 

At five o ^clock on a cloudy afternoon six months 
later he laid down the little hammer with which 
he had been driving neat rows of pins into a block 
of wood, straightened his bent shoulders, and 
sighed. The big room in the Geology Building 

' was already dark ; only his shaded light poured a 

i pool of radiance on his table ; the other boys had 
gone. It was time to get home to supper and 

' geology text-books. 

He put away neatly the boxes of pins, the ham- 

I mer, the piece of wood almost covered witli a cor- 

I rugated surface of steel points. To-morrow he 
could begin filling them in with clay. He 'd been 
pretty lucky, getting that Arkansas relief -map 
job. There were advantages in being poor. 
Take Kimball, now ; Kimball was as good in geol- 
ogy as he was, but KimbalPs father had money. 
Kimball hadn't got that chance to work all sum- 
mer in Arkansas. Valuable experience it had 

i been, too. Pretty soft, getting a job that taught 

I him while it fed him ! 

A drizzling rain was beginning to dim and 

I soften the lights of the Quad, making them misty 
yellow globes. Long silvery streaks of light lay 
on the shining black pavements under the arches. 
He walked rapidly, head bent, in that fast, tireless 

1 stride that left behind him any man who tried to 
keep up with his hill walks. The glimmering 
of Encina faded into the darkness behind him as 



130 THE MAKING OF 

he swung do^vn the long drive toward Palo Alto. 

In twelve months the wheat-fields by the railway 
tracks had become a little toAvn, a scattered group 
of new houses connected by muddy roads and 
wandering narrow sidewalks. He lived there 
now, in Eomero Hall, a furnished house rented and 
managed cooperatively. Eeturning to Stanford 
that fall to find the cooking at Encina no better 
and the price raised to $28.50 a month, he had 
quietly helped to organize Romero Hall. 

The boys were already eating in the dining- 
room. He flung his cap at the hall rack, ran a 
hand through his hair, and slipped into his place. 

DeLos Magee was listening tolerantly to a row 
about football; Frank Drumheller, the Wildcat 
from Walla Walla, pounded the table in his earn- 
estness, while Frank Nash and Ajax Brown both 
talked at the same time, caring less to be heard 
than to express their opinions. Frank Nash was 
a rich man's son who courted the reputation of a 
sport. Yes, decidedly there were advantages in 
being poor. Just the same, it was a good thing to 
be a mixer. Strange that a fellow could n't break 
out of his shell more easily; his mind worked 
quickly enough inside it ; it was only in expressing 
himself that he felt awkward, tied down by some- 
thing intangible. 

His abstemious meal finished, he slid back from 
the table. 



I 



HERBERT HOOVER 131 

** Hoover, why the devil don't you eat more?" 
Fred Williams demanded. ^ ' Fatten up ; put some 
flesh on that skeleton of yours.'' 

^'I use my food for high-class tissue, Fred." 
He stretched his angular, loose-jointed body, put 
his feet in another chair, and leaned back quietly 
for a little amusement. He knew the idiosyncra- 
sies of that Romero crowd, held together by the 
one common need of comfortable living outside of 
Encina. Nothing was more fun than to get them 
started by a word or two and then sit back and 
listen. ^'Well, you Daffodil Poet, how are you 
getting along with Barrack-room Ballads 1 ' ' 

They were off. Edward Maslin Hulme, writer 
of delicate lyrics, started at the touch of the flick- 
ing remark. 

''You rock-digger, your soul 's calcined by your 
intimate association with subterrestrial strata. 
What do you know about poetry! Kipling 's a 
great poet — the voice of the best English — " 

Chet Magee leaned forward: "Kipling 's cal- 
cined himself, with rotten British imperialism. 
If you 're talking English poetry, talk Browning. ' ' 

Charley Cram came in at that : ''Yes, or Shelley. 
If you can show me anything in Browning that 
touches the line — " 

Bert thrust his hands into his pockets, slid far- 
ther down on his backbone, and gave himself up 
to the fun of listening. 



132 THE MAKING OF 

*'Any quotation from the English poets is 
good,'' the Daffodil Poet declared, and was 
cheered by a burst of applause from the literary 
end of the table, mingled with antagonistic groans. 

**The only good English poet that ever lived 
was a Scotchman who knew good booze," scoffed 
Fred Williams, the Dago-red expert. 

''What 's the matter with Byron T' Frank Nash 
demanded, true to form as a sport. ''The only 
English poem worth a damn is Don Juan." 

"Worth a damn is right," said Fred Burrows, 
but the Wildcat from Walla Walla was talking, 
too: 

"You fellows all make me sick. You're all 
mushy. No real two-gun man can read poetry 
without turning into a sissy." Two chairs tipped 
over backward ; the Daffodil Poet and Tom Pom- 
eroy were restrained by peace-makers, and 
through the melee Sam Collins swore reproach- 
fully at Bert. He got up. 

"Boys, why don't you read some real poetry 
made in America?" he said. "Whitcomb Riley, 
Walt Whitman, Joaquin Miller? America 
doesn't have to go to England for poets. We 
beat the English in poetry just as we beat 'em 
in government and beat 'em in fight — " 

He went down under the rush, four mad red- 
faced champions of English poetry on top of him. 
But valiantly he defended himself with good 



HERBEET HOOVER 133 

American punches, and what did a few broken 
dishes and chairs matter? Gee, it was great to 
be alive! — to be alive and a sophomore in Stan- 
ford! 

Grinning, he emerged from the scrap. The fel- 
lows liked him, when they thought of him at all. 
He picked up a chair or two, went into the hallway, 
and pulled on his cap. Upstairs there was a 
sound of feet, slamming doors, running water. 
One of the English champions was dressing to go 
to a dance. Bert would have liked to dance, but 
his very muscles balked at attempting it. Collins, 
coming through the hallway, clapped him on the 
shoulder. ^^ Going to help me tackle those bills 
to-night? They 're in one holy mess. Somehow 
I can't make those wholesalers total up their 
statements or send 'em on time, and there 's two 
crates of festive eggs I got to chase down before 
I die." 

^^Sure I will," he replied. ^*I 've got to see a 
man on laundry business now, but I '11 be right 
back." 

The rain had ceased; a star twinkled here and 
there amid banks of driven cloud. One street- 
lamp shed a doubtful light on Waverley Street, 
where the two-plank sidewalk offered a refuge 
from the mud. The shrill clamor of tree-toads 
sang tenor to the bass of frogs in the ditches ; the 
boards creaked beneath his quick step. In a pool 



134 THE MAKING OF 

of darkness under an oak he stopped suddenly 
and stood alert. There was a sharp yell from the 
darkness ahead. The sound of a desperate, pant- 
ing struggle. Curses. Cries of derisive triumph. 
'^No you don't! Oh, you would, would you?" 
Dimly he saw four figures carrying away a fifth, 
like a scene in a melodrama. He slid quietly close 
to the tree trunk. 

A rush ! No one had told him of it, but there 
it was. Those young Freshies were out after the 
Sophs, were theyt Luckily he was wearing his 
work clothes and could put up a fight if they 
jumped him. He put his cap in his coat pocket j 
the boards creaked no more under his weight. 

Tn and out of the shadow, skirting mud-puddles, 
tangling his feet in cross-lot weeds, cautiously 
alert as an Indian, he followed the hilarious fresh- 
men and their victim. Ah! Piles of lumber^ 
heaps of shavings, the scaffolding of an unfinished 
house! The freshmen disappeared in the black 
ness of the open doorway. Strange, muf9eci 
sounds, and grunts, and joyous, exultant, laughtei 
sounded within the thin walls. The four fresh 
men came out and did a silent war-dance of deligh 
before they raced back on the way they had come 

He stepped across the threshold and felt his wa: 
up unraik^l stairs in the darkness. The floor o 
the upper room was covered with bound figured- 
writhing in sawdust among kegs of nails and scati 



HERBERT HOOVER 135 

tered tools. *^Sst! It 's me — Bert Hoover/^ he 
whispered, and the silence was like a shout. He 
felt for ropes, slashing them with his knife. 
Exclamations, curses, and threats followed the 
handkerchief gags from twenty sophomore mouths. 

*^ Those damn Freshies! Come on, fellows! 
Let 's give 'em — '' 

^^No. We don't want to throw away our ad- 
vantage. Lay low, and surprise 'em when they 
come back, ' ' he urged. 

''Bert 's right, boys. If we keep still and wait 
for 'em — " They lay together in the pine-smell- 
ing darkness, whispered tales of treachery and 
vows of revenge buzzing among them. 

''Sh! They 're coming!" Feet in the grass. 
Feet on the lumber piles. Feet on the stairs. 
Silently Bert seized a freshman around the knees 
and brought him yelping down. And then pande- 
monium. Wild yells, crashing bodies, rocking 
floors. Boot-soles in his face, hands in his hair. 
''Let go, you blamed fool! I 'm Ninety-five ! " 
Friends, foes, one struggling mass. Fists landing 
somewhere, grunts. Outside, shrill yells of Fresh- 
men raising the alarm. Ladders against the 
walls, windows blocked with fresh enemies. Gee, 
what a fight ! What a fight ! 

A freshman in his arms. Too close to strike. 
Straining muscles, heaving chest, gasps. Roll- 
ing. Over, under, up again. Hanging on, teeth 



136 THE MAKING OF 

set — and then a sickening instant on a brink- 
balancing, swaying — and over the edge. Ugh: 
He struck mud and shavings on the ground below. 
Breath gone. The weight of the Freshie on his 
chest. Yells of freshman triumph. Yells for 
help, and for ropes. The Sophs were overcome. 
A knee in his chest, a rope around his straining 
wrists. ''Come on, you Sophs! The camera's 
waiting. You 're going to have a picture of your- 
selves, all made just for you!'' ''Won't you be 
beautiful in your pretty little ropes on the steps 
of Encina?" "Oh, naughty, naughty! Help 
me gag this chap, somebody. His language is n't 
nice, it '11 spoil the flash-light. Oh, you would, 
bite, would you? Such a pretty little sophomore,' 
too!" "Now, fellows! Bring 'em on to the 
'bus!" 

Quietly, curved in the darkness, Bert loosened 
the knot at his ankles. A swift turn of his body, 
a straight, hard kick, a freshman howl lost in the 
uproar, and he was free. Running across th 
fields, dodging through gardens, over a fencej 
around a barn, — and shaking with silent laughte 
he trotted down his own street and into Romero, 

"Good Lord, Bert! What 's been the row?' 
Sam Collins gazed at him across a table littere 
with papers. 

He brushed the shavings from his coat with a 
hasty hand and slid into a chair. "Freshmen try- 



HERBERT HOOVER 137 

ing to tie up the whole Pioneer Class. Great 
scrap. I just happened along in time — '^ 

Collins leaned back and listened. Several years 
older than Bert, he too was working his way 
through college; he sold school supplies. It was 
easy to be natural and chummy with men like him. 
He understood a fellow. He did n ^t go in for 
dancing and girls, either ; he had a good hard grip 
on life. It was these facile, light-hearted, easy- 
going fellows that made the old inliibitions close 
upon a man like a shell. Sam Collins was as easy 
to get along with as a professor. 

Dr. Branner, now — he was like an old friend. 
And the new professor, J. P. Smith, who had 
come on to Stanford to teach paleontology — he was 
a good chum on a camping trip. They had had 
good fun and learned a lot, too, on the trip to 
Pescadero in search of fossil shells ; another expe- 
dition, this time to Ocean View, was already 
Iplanned. Professors, and men like Collins and 
Kimball, were interested in the things that inter- 
ested him; their minds ran in the same channels. 
Just the same, he was missing something by not 
being a better mixer; a man ought to be able to 
•get both sides of college life. 

^ * Athletics are certainly picking up, ' ' said Col- 
lins. **Now that Walter Camp 's out here to 
coach the team there 'II be something doing in the 
game. ' ' 



138 THE MAKING OF 

^^Yes. Stanford 's pretty busy these days. 
Baseball, football, debating clubs, concerts. It 's 
all in a muddle, though. Student-body affairs 
ought to be organized.^' 

*'Well, what can you do when the seniors and 
frats have got all the jobs? I don't like the fra- 
ternity idea much, Bert. I 'm afraid it 's bad for 
the democratic spirit of the university. The 
under-classmen are the real Stanford crowd. 
There aren't fifty upper-classmen, and yet 
they 're running things because they brought in 
the fraternities." 

^*No, that isn't it. The trouble is that they 
aren't running things. Everybody's starting 
something on his own hook; there isn't any co- 
ordination of activities. There ought to be some 
unified system, with a responsible head. Here the 
student body will be handling thousands of dol- 
lars, and no one person responsible. Some 
crowds making money and some losing it, and no 
one knomng where it comes from or where it goes 
to. And there are a lot of enterprises worth while 
that don 't pay in money. If there was a central 
clearing house, those that do make money could 
carry the others." M 

^'You're right about that, Bert." V 

It was a big problem. Hundreds of students; 
scores of different groups among thom. Activi- 
ties rising spontaneously in all directions. The 



I 



HERBERT HOOVER 139 

classes of ^95 and '96, sophomores and freshmen, 
the bulk of the university, a huge formless mass 
struggling blindly toward some form. Politics in 
the hands of the few upper-classmen who had come 
from old universities. No one else giving much 
attention to them. No coherent Stanford student 
body yet created. 

^^Well, are we going to get at those Romero 
bills to-night r' 

The junior year began in mourning. Senator 
Stanford was dead. He had died in the summer, 
his going casting a gloom over the early vacation 
months during which the relief-map of Arkansas 
was finished, and clouding the joyful news that it 
had received a prize at the World's Fair at Chi- 
cago. The summer had struggled under the blight 
of the panic of '93. Nineteen banks had failed in 
three days in Oregon; Uncle John Minthorn had 
been ruined. It was not a happy vacation, though 
Bert had found some interesting tertiary speci- 
mens in the Oregon mountains and sent down to 
the university a collection of fossils found on the 
Astoria trail of the Wilkes expedition of the 
thirties. 

He opened the year with fifteen hours credits 
for summer work in geology. The panic has not 
touched his little inheritance, guarded faithfully 
by Laurie Tatum, but only a couple of hundred 



140 THE MAKING OF 

dollars remained of it. However, the State of 
Arkansas had paid him well for his work on the 
map, and Dr. Branner promised him jobs in the 
laboratory. 

The new blacksmith shop had opened, too, offer- 
ing a fascinating knowledge of metals and tools. 
''Dad" Peterson, silent and absorbed as himseK, 
gazed at his first efforts from beneath bushy eye- 
brows and offered one warning: 

''There 's no use working nine hours at this, 
Hoover. I can't give credits for more than three 
hours.'' 

"Well, Dad, I '11 just credit myself with the 
other six," he replied cheerfully. After that the 
shop was his. He could use the treasured lathe 
whenever he wanted it; he was freely allowed 
expensive metals with which to work when the 
supply ran short, and other students, driven to 
foraging for them, brought from the ranch black- 
smith bitter complaints that steel and iron myster- 
iously vanished if he so much as laid them down. 

There was no more money for additional equip- 
ment, hardly enough for running-expenses, in 
Stanford now. The estate was in litigation; on 
Senator Stanford's death the United States Gov- 
cniHH'nt had demanded the repayment of some 
millions of dollars lent by it to the railroad he 
had helped to build. If the Government won the 
suit, the university must close its doors; mean- 



HERBERT HOOVER 141 

while it struggled on under an increasing load of 
debt, professors giving up part of their small 
salaries, students working shoulder to shoulder 
with them in the common danger and hope. 

Politics was in the air that year. The Stanford 
spirit was becoming coherent. It expressed itself 
suddenly in a consciousness on the part of the 
^^ barbs,'' the non-fraternity element, that the fra- 
ternity groups were acting for themselves rather 
than for Stanford as a whole. The barbs were 
growing revolutionary. 

^^That 'Psi' is spelled wrong,'' said Bert 
Hoover, lounging one night in Sam Collins 's room. 
^*It ought to be spelled s-i-g-h." 

' ' Yeh ? Why so. Hoover ? ' ' 

'^Because, like Alexander the Great, they sigh 
because there are no more jobs or oflSces to con- 
quer." 

Collins looked up from his book. This matter 
lof fraternity dominance had engaged his attention 
for some time ; he had talked to some of the faculty 
about it, and to Harvard and Yale graduates he 
|met in the city. He was curious to know how 
they thought the system worked out in the older 
universities; was it abused politically as it had 
•come to be at Stanford? 

I *^ Hoover," he said, ^^how do you feel about 
this thing? Are you against a man simply be- 
cause he 's a frat man?" 



142 THE MAKING OF 

Bert took his feet from the table and sat up. 
^'No/' he said, intensely. ''It isn't that.^ I 'm 
against any man, frat or barb, who puts his OAvn 
crowd ahead of the college. I 'm for the man, not 
for the bunch he belongs to. Look at the way 
things stand here. It isn't the fitness of a man 
for the job; it is n't even a matter of reward for 
services. It 's simply to boost some fraternity by 
taking everything in sight. What we need is a 
spirit of service to the whole student body. I 'm 
against the fraternities simply because they use 
their organizations to keep the mass of the stu- 
dents from getting a fair shake." 

'' Hoover, come into the fight!" 

''All right, I will." 

Lester Hinsdale dropped in and welcomed the 
recruit with enthusiasm into a game in which he 
was already keenly interested. 

''But what we need also," said Bert, warming 
to the new activity, "is a real organization of 
student-body affairs. We '11 never get anywhere 
with anything at loose ends this way. We 
need — " 

' ' System ! ' ' completed Collins. ' ' You organiza- 
tion shark ! You 'd like to audit Stanford the way 
you audited Romero's grocery bills last year. 
Hoover would make a good treasurer for the stu- 
dent body, Hinsdale." 

Of course, his lack of personal popularity was 



HERBERT HOOVER 143 

a drawback to a political career. He would have 
to break down the shell that had grown so hard 
around him in Oregon, get out of it somehow. 
He was going every Sunday now to the informal 
evenings at Dr. Branner's, and getting along 
very well, prodding himself out of his habit of 
silence, helping to pass the steaming cups of choc- 
olate that Mrs. Branner poured. He tried a few 
dance-steps with the boys in the parlor at Encina 
and grinned cheerfully when bystanders kidded 
him. ^ ^ I think it is good for a man to be a mixer, ' ' 
he said; ^^good in every way." 

The spring was coming. Another year and he 
would be leaving Stanford. Now for the big 
fight, the election of student-body officers for his 
senior year. Big projects were afoot, big plans 
worked out in the conferences of the barb leaders. 
He was one of them now, a man to be reckoned 
with in Stanford politics. He worked with Zion 
on the new constitution; his suggestions were 
heard with respect, discussed, accepted. There 
must be an entire reorganization of university 
affairs ; the creation of a new executive committee 
of the student body with full control over all the 
funds received from student activities. 

**The way things are going here is rotten, sim- 
ply rotten ! The athletic committee is a farce. It 
does n't build toward anything ; it has n't any defi- 
nite Stanford spirit; it simply takes in all the 



144 THE MAKING OF 

money it can get and lets it go no one knows 
where. It exists simply to bust the surplus. And 
look at the way it lets the management go. The 
idea of allowing volunteer teams to organize them- 
selves and go out and call themselves Stanford 
teams and divide the gate-receipts ! It 's out- 
rageous. The treasurer of the executive commit- 
tee must be given full control of the whole athletic 
activity — yes, and all shows and enterprises under 
the Stanford name— and he must be held responsi- 
ble for it all. With acting managers under him.'' 
''You 're right, Hoover. And you 're the man 
for the job." 

''Well, I don't know about that, Hinsdale." 
Yet his heart had leaped. A big opportunity! 
To be the man to pull all that college world 
together, to organize it, put it on a solid basis, 
leave it as a monument behind him when he left 
Stanford ! His big chance to distinguish himself 
as a Stanford man. But there were many things 
to be considered. The barbs must put up a man 
who could be elected, too. He was not very pop- 
ular. The boys had a certain confidence in him, 
no doubt; they knew from the laundry business 
that he could handle accounts. He was treasurer 
of the class, right then, but that amounted to little. 
Could he swing a winning vote for a big job? The 
"Camp" would be for him, — fifty or sixty men, 
solid barb, inhabiting the makeshift buildings 



HERBERT HOOVER 145 

deserted by the workmen, cooking their own food, 
washing their own clothes, many of them the 
brightest minds in college. He was at home in 
that crowd; in many ways they were his kind of 
men. *' Hoover can deliver the Camp,'' Hinsdale 
and Collins agreed. But there were Roble Hall, 
the frats, the musical and literary crowds, the 
athletic group. He had no influence in any of 
them. It was up to his friends. If Collins, Hins- 
dale, Ray Wilbur urged him to run, offered their 
support, he would have enough backing to risk 
making the fight. There was no need for false 
modesty; he knew he could do the job well if he 
got it. He tingled to get at the details of it. But 
he was not the only man in the university who 
could do the job well. And there was nothing to 
prevent his helping any good man who did get it. 
But it was a very big chance for him. His organ- 
izing ability was the one thing which he could 
give. 

' ' We want you. Hoover, ' ' they urged. ' ' You 're 
absolutely the man for the place." 

He hesitated, rattling the keys in his pocket. 
^^I '11 think about it." 

Then the night in Ray Wilbur's room when all 
together they urged him to make the fight, rea- 
soned, pleaded, pounded home arguments with 
their fists on the table. 

**Well, see here. If I 'm going to run, there 



146 THE MAKING OF 

must be a clause written into the new constitutioiil 
providing that the job doesn't carry any salary, 
with it until the second year.'' 

**But, Hoover, that 's nonsense. You 're work- 
ing your way through. It 's going to be a job 
that will take a lot of your time. It 's worth a 
decent salary and you 're entitled to it." 

*^I can't help that. I can't get behind a consti- 
tution that gives the treasurer a fat salary, and 
then run for Treasurer. I 'm not in this to get 
myself a good job. I want to see the job done. 
I won't put myself in a position where any one 
can say anything else." 

^^ There 's something in that," said Collins, 
thoughtfully. 

''Then you '11 run, Hoover?" 

''If you put it up to me that way — " he turned 
the keys over and over in his pocket, then thrust 
his hands deeper and clenched them — "Yes." 

He was in it then, in it with every ounce of his 
energy and enthusiasm. Let the lectures go. 
Laboratory work could wait. He already had 
credits ahead. As for English, time enough later 
to worry about that. He was rounding up sup- 
port for the new constitution, buttonholing men 
in corners of the Quad, routing out groups at 
Encina and getting them over to meetings in the 
chapel. The constitution was put through. 

Then the fight for the election, mass meetings, 



HERBERT HOOVER 147 

parades, demonstrations in front of Encina, in 
front of Roble; Hinsdale making speeches; hur- 
riedly called conferences of the inner circle at 
midnight in Collins 's room. Rumors flying like 
wildfire over the campus, skilfully fought with 
back-fire of other rumors. Under the arches of 
the Quad and down the road to Mayfield in the soft 
April night the wild campaign yell: 

''Rah! Rah! Rix! 
Hinsdale ! Hoover ! Hicks ! 
Barbs on top 
And the frats in a fix!" 

That was not exactly his sentiment. He was 
against group control, any group, anywhere. But 
it was his group that would bring about the re- 
form, anyway. They had been without a voice for 
long enough. It was their turn now. And he was 
in this game heart and soul. Let 'em yell. 

At ^ve o'clock of election day the vote was 
iannounced. President: no election. Treasurer: 
[no election. Football manager: no election. 
i^ever had there been so many votes polled ; never 
'had a contest been so close. 

I In his room at Encina they waited for the dinner 
gong. It was a stern consultation, a determined 
[gathering together of forces, a canvass of possi- 
bilities, vote by vote. ''We 're in for a real fight 
now. Let 's get this thing in shape." Hoover 



148 THE MAKING OF 

sat at the table, sheets of paper before him, pencil 
in hand. *^ Every vote will count and we can't 
waste our energies. Wilbur, can you get that 
young Freshie Smith?'' 

^^Give him to Hinsdale. He 's a queener. 
He 's gone on a girl who wants to get into the 
Thetas. Hinsdale 's got a wire through there. 
Who 's next?" 

Methodically he went through the lists, discuss- 
ing, comparing notes, jotting down memoranda of 
characters, private histories, secretly nursed am- 
bitions. ^^And there are ten in this university 
reading mere books to learn psychology ! ' ' 

A feverish week, in which he slept little and ate 
less. But he never needed food or rest when he 
was working. Electioneering all day for Hins- 
dale and Hicks. Nightly conferences, names 
checked oif, lists revised. At two o'clock on the 
last morning, *^Well, it looks as though we '11 put 
it through this time." 

Again the Quad was alive with voters, a crowd 
around the polls, a steadily moving line past them. 
On the outskirts, in the corners, backing doubtful 
ones against the sandstone walls, arguing, brow- 
beating, sternly holding up wabbling backbones, 
marshaling the squads of Three-H votes, he 
worked without pause. The vote was incredibly 
large. Not a matriculated soul had been over- 



HERBERT HOOVER 149 

looked. In the laboratories, the corridors, the 
library, heelers were routing out the indifferent, 
the political slackers. Messengers rushed on 
bicycles to furnished rooms in Palo Alto and 
dragged digs from their text-books. 

The polls closed. The count ended. Silence 
fell over the waiting crowds. But he knew the 
result before it was read. 



Hinsdale 380 

Hoover 370 

Hicks 375 



Magee 274. 

Grosh 282. 

Kessinger 285. 



The Three H's had won. In Encina that night 
there was a great celebration. The jubilant pro- 
ponents of the three winners were crowded to- 
gether so thickly that when the champions ap- 
peared they had to be passed over the heads of the 
crowd to a place near the window to make their 
speeches. With an open box of cigars in each 
hand, the treasurer-elect made this triumphal 
flight through the air. 

Rah ! Rah ! Rix ! 
Hinsdale ! Hoover ! Hicks ! 
Barbs on top 
And the f rats in a fix ! 

His election speech was brief. He ended it with 
a request for another yell, though he did not say 
why he called for it. Altogether now : 



t 



150 THE MAKING OF 

Rah! Rah! Rah! 
Rah! Rah! Rah! 

Rah ! Rah ! 

STANFORD ! 

He returned to college late the next autnmi] 
missing four weeks of his last winter in Stanford 
How quickly the golden years had gone! Onh 
eight months left. From the pine forests anc 
rocky peaks of the Sierras his thoughts had leapec 
longingly toward that missed opening day. Bu 
the summer had given him a great opportunity- 
United States Geological Survey work under 
Waldemar Lindgren, a fine man, a big man ir 
geology. The work has been fascinating; Lind 
gren had been inspiring. He had stayed until the 
survey closed for the winter. ' 

Now he summarized his assets and liabilities, 
getting ready for the last eight months he had 
left. Laurie Tatum's final payment, ninety dol- 
lars, wiped out his inheritance. With his summer 
earnings he had just enough to get him through 
till spring, so that was off his mind. He had got 
an additional eight hours credits in geology for 
summer work. 

He registered light — four hours in geology, two 
in chemistry, four in elementary German. Then 
he plunged into the real job. 

A multitude of details. A mass of incoherent 
activities, unrelated and conflicting. No accounts 



HERBERT HOOVER 151 

lad been kept of receipts and expenditures, no 
wlicy formulated. The Pioneer Class had gone 
^•aily through three years of pure individualism 
ind '96 and '97 were following its lead, held to- 
gether only by a spirit of loyalty to Stanford that 
bad not been translated into any terms of action. 
He had in his hands the making of the student 
body as a compact unit. 

"I 've got forty varieties of rows on my hands," 
he said, running his hands through his hair before 
plunging them firmly into those pockets that were 
his refuge in moments of thought. ' ' Our athletics 
are in one holy mess. Worse than I imagined." 
His first move was to install a voucher system 
of accounting for expenditures, a system he had 
learned from the United States Geological Survey. 
It was simple, compact and leak-tight. Howls 
arose from captains, coaches, football heroes. 
The entire baseball team stormed him with pro- 
tests, "mat 's all the row about! We 're ath- 
iletes, not clerks. There 's nothing wrong with 
lOur accounts. Receipts, so much; expenses, so 
much. They balance, don't they!" ^ 

"Yes, but where 's your surplus. That s no 
■way to handle money. No use talking; you re 
only wasting time. After this the receip s come 
into the treasury, and if you get any of em out 
again you '11 get it on itemized expense accounts 
approved by the treasurer." 



152 THE MAKING OF 

His popularity was not growing, but respect 
for him increased. He went down expense ac- 
counts with a merciless pencil. Not friendship 
nor influence nor pleading stayed its ruthless 
point. He invaded training-quarters in the gym 
and overhauled supplies, checked them up, cut out 
waste. 

^^No, you can't have moleskin pants to practise 
in. I know you 're a special hero and all that. I 
yell for you as loud as anybody. But you don't 
need moleskin pants to wear out practising. Can- 
vas trousers for you, old man. You can have 
moleskins to lick Berkeley in. But out here you 
wear the same kind of pants the others do. ' ' 

He was traveling back and forth between Stan- 
ford and San Francisco, interviewing ball-park 
managers, meeting visiting, athletes. Hinsdale 
went with him, but friends as they were, Hinsdale 
must pay his own expenses. 

''I 've got to come. It 's a business trip, with 
me. But you 're just doing the social thing as 
student-body president. You ought to pay your 
o^vn way, you can afford to give something for the 
honor of being president. I 'd pay mine if I had 
the money. I 'm going to pile up a surplus in 
the treasury." 

The task absorbed him. The only class work 
that he still pursued with enthusiasm was geology, 
and there was an added reason now for that. His 



HERBERT HOOVER 153 

first day in the laboratory that year had intro- 
duced him to a young freshman, a genuine sort of 
girl with no nonsense about her, who seemed to 
have a real enthusiasm for the work. He had 
never cared much for girls ; Roble Hall had never 
heard the sound of his mandolin through the twi- 
light, nor had he been seen wandering beneath the 
moonlit arches of the Quad with a white blouse 
beside him. He thought of girls as he did of men : 
they were citizens of Stanford as they had been 
citizens of the Quaker villages of his childhood. 
There had been times when he grinned at their 
bloomers, at their preposterously wide sleeves and 
tight-laced waists. He had watched with amuse- 
ment their campaigns to capture the attention of 
football heroes and popular queeners, and he had 
longed to be able to help a few in a brave fight to 
get through Stanford against heavy odds. But 
he hadn't bothered about them much. Oh, a 
wandering fancy or two, too shy to make a win- 
ning campaign for its object. But this girl was 
different. She seemed a thoroughly good sort, 
the kind of girl it would be mighty fine to know. 

^*Who 's the girl in the Lab this morning!" he 
asked casually, adjusting his microscope. The 
man next him lifted a blank look that melted into 
amusement. 

'^ Which one?'' 

Sure enough, there were several girls there! 



154 THE MAKING OF 

*^The new one, of course. I know the others. 
Big gray eyes — soft hair— over there by the win- 
dow. ' ' 

''That 's Lou Henry. From Monterey. I 
think her father 's a banker down there/' 

''Oh! Thanks. '^ 

She walked easily, as gracefully unconscious of 
her body as an animal. Went in for athletics, 
probably. Something strong and courageous 
about her, like a young boy. But nothing bruskly 
masculine. Impossible to imagine her astride a 
bicycle, wearing bloomers, or standing with 
stringy hair arguing that she was as good as a 
man. Must have a real brain too, to go in for 
geology. Remarkably soft white hands, with a 
good grip. 

' ' Glad to meet you, Miss Henry, ' ' he said. Her 
voice was pleasant, too, and she smiled in a 
friendly way, without making eyes at a fellow. 
Not that many girls did, at him. But she was n't 
the kind that would, anyway. 

The next Saturday, as senior in charge of the 
expedition, he took out a crowd for a geological 
survey of the hills. Usually the girls did not 
come; the pace was pretty strenuous for a girl. 
They came with parties especially arranged for 
them. But here was Lou Henry, matter-of-fact 
and pleasant, in sturdy walking-shoes, a short 
skirt, and a sweater. There was a red bow under 



HERBERT HOOVER 155 

the broad white collar of her blouse, and a little 
cap on her head. 

Her presence made rather for constraint at 
[first. A girl always did. Introduced an alien 
element, somehow, into the free-and-easy compan- 
ionship of himself and men like Wilson and Mit- 
chell, who forgot everything else in their absorp- 
tion in rock formations. You had to think about 
a girl, be polite to her, help her over fences and 
pull her up steep places. She expected a certain 
amount of attention, of course. And you had n't 
any to spare when you were after rocks. Well, it 
could n't be helped, and she was an extremely nice 
girl, at that. 

They crossed the wide waste spaces of the 
campus where the old paddocks had been, and 
came to the ranch fence. Should he climb to the 
top of it and help her from there, or get over on 
the other side and lift her dowTi"? Annoying busi- 
ness, a girl's climbing a fence; they made such a 
fuss about it. But it was built too low for her to 
crawl under. 

^^Miss Henry," said he politely, offering his 
hand. But she had not seen it. She had laid her 
own palm on the top board, and lightly, in a 
matter-of-course manner, had vaulted the fence. 
She was going on, blithely unconscious of the pro- 
found sensation behind her. Never before had 
anvone vaulted fences on these expeditions. 



156 THE MAKING OF 

Could he do it? He had to do it. Let himself be 
beaten by a girl? Impossible! But what depths 
of chagrin if he tried and failed ! 

The thing was over in a moment. He put his 
hand on the fence, drew a deep breath, and went 
safely over. One by one, behind him, the others 
followed like sheep. Lou Henry, scanning the 
hillside, remained oblivious. It seemed that she 
always vaulted fences and expected others to do 
the same. What a girl ! 

The atmosphere of awed respect that sur- 
rounded her became a friendly comradeship before 
the group turned homeward under the sunset- 
colored sky. She was so unaffected, so friendly, 
that she no longer seemed a girl on their hands. 
Yet she was not in the least masculine. Nothing 
rough-and-ready about her. Not a person to take 
liberties with, A self-respecting, clear-eyed, 
dauntless sort of comrade. A thoroughly good 
fellow. You could depend on a girl like that. 

^*Lou Henry 's all right,'' they said in their 
rooms at Encina. He said nothing, but the 
thought ran on in his mind, paralleling the stream 
of his work, as manager of the student body and 
Stanford athletics. A swarm of details shot 
through with intrigue surrounded him. He was 
the center of a hundred radiating threads. His 
days went in figuring bills, making out accounts, 
signing vouchers and checks, being interviewed by 



HERBERT HOOVER 157 

many men seeking favors. In the evenings he 
listened to complaints and pleas and rumors, and 
learned to probe the most enticing bait with a wary 
concern for concealed hooks. But he missed no 
geology classes, and Dr. Branner smiled at his 
enthusiasm for taking the freshmen on Saturday 
afternoon expeditions. 

She was a girl in a thousand, all right. A girl 
any man might be eager to win. It would be years 
before he was in a position to marry a girl like 
that. Even if he wanted to. A serious thing, 
this marrying business. Many a man had been 
crippled in his career by it. A man gave up a lot 
when he gave up his freedom and shouldered the 
responsibilities of being married. On the other 
hand, the right sort of girl sometimes made a 
man. She was the right sort, no question about 
that. Oh, what was the use ? What chance did he 
stand, anyway, virtually penniless, with his living 
to make, while she could probably take her choice 
of a dozen men! 

In the midnight silence there came a voice at 
the foot of the bed. 

' ' Bert ! The baseball team 's just voted to play 
Santa Rosa and pocket the receipts.'' 

' ' Yeh ? Tell me about it. ' ' 

Undeniable evidence. Another athletic scandal 
threatening Stanford. He pulled on his trousers, 
buttoned a coat around his collarless neck, and 



158 THE MAKING OF || 

hurried to Dr. Angell, the chairman of the faculty 
committee on athletics. 

His pebbles on the dark window-pane brought 
out a sleepy head. ^^Whoisitf" 

**Me — Hoover.*' 

*^Come on up.'* 

He sat on the edge of the bed and told the story. 
* * Give me a letter to that bunch, will you 1 I don 't 
want to appear in it, you understand. Tell *em 
'you Ve heard a rumor, but you don't believe it, 
because if they do such a thing they '11 be barred 
as professionals from ever playing for Stanford 
again. They know it already, of course. But the 
letter will throw some sense into their two-by-four 
minds." 

He crawled back between the sheets at four in 
the morning, that disaster averted. What did it 
matter if his German grammar lay neglected on a 
table piled with letters and vouchers? He was 
doing something for Stanford. 

At the end of the semester he w^as conditioned in 
chemistry, and he had flunked in German. Eng- 
lish 1 B still hung about his neck relentlessly. He 
registered for nineteen hours and faced them 
under the pressure of spring activities. 

The days went past like the rise and dip of tele- 
phone wires beside an express train. There was 
so much to do, and so little time in which to do 
it. The weeks were hurling him forw^ard to the 



HERBEET HOOVER 159 

day when Stanford and all that it meant would 
be behind him. The last of his money was going, 
but he could not waste time in earning more. He 
could do that later. Now he wanted all of Stan- 
ford that he could get— friendly talks with Dr. 
Branner, hours with the boys he cared for, walks 
in the hills with Lou Henry, evenings at concerts 
in the old chapel. 

The hills around Stanford were green once more 
from the winter rains, the pastures gorgeous with 
poppies and lupin. Meadow-larks sang from the 
blossoming fields and towhees were nesting in the 
clumps of wild clematis and lilac through which 
he pushed, breaking a path for Lou Henry to fol- 
low the dip of a limestone stratum. Her cheeks 
were flushed from climbing, her quick breath 
fluttered the red tie beneath her white collar, but 
she did not ask for help. When a slashing branch 
whipped out a red mark across her cheek she did 
not murmur. And she was genuinely interested 
in geology. 

They chipped off specimens of protruding rocks 
with their hammers and sat on ledges in the sun- 
shine examining them, while he told her what they 
meant. There was so much meaning in a rock. 
It told of cataclysms that racked the world before 
man climbed from the slime to stand upright in a 
world of gigantic ferns and monster winged liz- 
ards. It showed the slow erosion of centuries, the 



160 THE MAKING OF 

ceaseless flux and change of the earth itself, that 
seems so changeless and solid. It led to wider 
thoughts. Life. The meaning and value of it. 
The purpose of existence. Ambitions. Ideals. 
Dreams. 

Lou Henry was not studying geology simply as 
a pastime. She meant to do something wnth it. 
She did not know exactly what it would be; she 
was only a freshman; there were three years of 
Stanford before her yet. But she meant to use 
her knowledge. That was the only reason for 
getting it, wasn't it? She wanted her life to 
count for something. It was so easy for a girl to 
waste her life. So much idleness and careless 
squandering of time and energies. She liked a 
good time, too. But a life that was all good times 
would bore her awfully. Yes, of course, if one 
married, that was ditferent. But she did not 
intend to be married, — not for a long while yet, 
anyway. She was going to finish college first and 
then — well, do something worth while with what 
she had learned. She was talking a lot about her- 
self, was n 't she ? What did he intend to do 1 

It was surprising how easy it was to talk to a 
girl like that. She was not like a girl, and yet 
she was all girl. Plans, hopes, ideals that he had 
hardly formed in himself, that certainly he had 
never expected to express in words, were not hard 
to tell her. Things like being kind, of being some 



HERBERT HOOVER 161 

service in the world. A man like Senator Stan- 
ford, now. That was a real success. Not because 
he had money, but because of the way he spent it. 
Of course it would be a hard pull at first. Lind- 
o:ien had been very kind, had praised him and his 
\v()rk. Friends like that helped a lot. He Avas n't 
afraid ; he 'd make a success somehow. It might 
take years, you know. You never can tell — 

The last week was close upon the Pioneers. As 
by a miracle, the millstone of English 1 B had 
fallen from his ne(?k. Professor Smith had had a 
sudden idea : 

'*Here, Hoover, stop worrying about English. 
Take this paper you handed in to me last month, 
fix the spelling and get attention on the strength 
of it. It proves you can express yourself well in 
written English, if that 's what they 're after." 

Now that pestiferous thing was behind him. 

Yet life was not unclouded these last sweet days 

of May. There were tears behind the gaiety of 

those final days under the old arches of the Quad. 

A double melancholy hung about them, sadness for 

I those who were departing, and sadness for the 

1 loved university. The suit brought by the Gov- 

1 ernment against the Stanford estate was reaching 

! the end of their last hope ; the life of their uni- 

■ versity hung now upon the final decision soon to 

be given by the Supreme Court. It might be that 

! the Pioneers, the first class to go out into the 



162 THE MAKING OF 

world from those doors, would be the last. 

He had given his best to Stanford in return for 
all that it had given him. The student-body 
affairs were organized now, its activities coordi- 
nated ; athletics had been given a new tradition of 
honorable ideals as well as glorious victories; 
there w^as a commendable balance to be left in the 
treasury. He had been a vital part of the strug- 
gle to create his university, building toward a 
future which might never be, but building strongly 
nevertheless. His work was done, ready perhaps 
to pass on to other hands down through the years, 
doomed perhaps to be wiped out. At least he had 
done his best. 

^^Men should make up their minds to be forgot- 
ten, and look about them, or within them, for some 
higher motive in what they do than the approba- 
tion of man, which is fame, — namely, their duty. 
They should be constantly and quietly at work, 
each in his sphere, regardless of effects, and leav- 
ing their fame to take care of itself.'' He had 
found that, somewhere, in something Longfellow 
wrote; he liked it. There was in it an echo of 
the spirit of West Branch and Newberg; it was 
the kind of thing Grandmother Minthorn might 
have said, or Uncle John ; yet it included his new 
vision of a world where even mountains decayed 
through the centuries and the generations of men 
were like the waves of a sea. 



HERBERT HOOVER 163 

It was good, though, to have the affectionate 
approval of men like Dr. Jordan and Dr. Branner 
and Mr. Lindgren, friends like Kimball and Col- 
lins and Wilbur and Wilson. He had done a good 
job; it was something to remember when he was 
with Lou Henry. He might not be able to lend 
her a varsity sweater, honored by great deeds on 
an embattled field, but he was the man who man- 
aged the man who did lend it to her. Lou Henry 
was linked in his mind with Stanford ; it was 
there he had met and grown to know her, and his 
fear for Stanford's threatened future was double- 
edged; he wished to think of her there when he 
was gone. 

Leaving Stanford so soon. Reaching the end of 
the long purpose to have a university education. 
Letting go finally the slender hold of his father's 
hand, stretched beyond the grave to help him. 
Absolutely on his own now. His pockets quite 
empty, and nothing in his hands but his A.B. 
degree in geologj^ and the offer of a temporary 
Job with Lindgren. Not that he was afraid; he 
would pull through somehow. He would not have 
sold the work of that last year in Stanford for any 
money. Still, there was the senior ball, and he 
wanted to go. Well, he could borrow the money 
he needed. 

His last dollar paid for his fare to San Fran- 
cisco on the day of Mrs. Stanford's reception. He 



164 THE MAKING OF 






could not miss the opening of the big house on 
California Street to the departing class that Sen- 
ator Stanford had welcomed on that long-past day 
in the Quad. It was a rite, a service to the last 
of the Pioneers, perhaps to the last class of Stan- 
ford. He moved through the large rooms, in the 
soft music and the munnur of low^ voices and 
silken trains, listened to Mrs. Stanford's talk to 
the boys and girls w^hom she and the senator had 
adopted in memory of the boy whose marble bust 
stood in the big hall. 

Then he hastened to meet a friend who might 
have some money. It was a close call, for the 
chosen rescuer had only fifteen dollars. 

^ ^ Give me seven and a half, will you ? I 've got 
to go to the senior ball.'' ■ 

^^Well, I should say so, Hoover! Here you 
are." The fifteen half-dollars clinked into his 
palm. Not much, but his bills w^ere paid; Lind- 
gren would advance his expenses to the Sierras. 

He w^as in the crowd that stood bareheaded 
around the old tree half-way between Encina and 
Eoble Hall, while the bronze tablet was unveiled 
that formally christened the Ninety-five Oak, a 
class legacy to sweethearts coming after them who 
would sit in the moonlight under those spreading 
branches. That was one thing he 'd missed in 
Stanford, he thought, smiling, while the last will 
and testament of '95 was solemnly read. Then, 



L 



HERBERT HOOVER 165 

all together, they sang the song of the early days 
they all remembered : 

''Dear chum of mine, do you recall 

When college had begun 
The gladness of that glorious fall 

And how we spent the mon ? 
The days of scrapes, the days of grapes, 

The days of '91— 

''Dear Class of '95, when all 

The four years thread is spun, 
The freshman follies we recall 

We would not have undone ; 
Those days when youth came seeking truth, 

The days of '91." 

Now for the senior ball! He had new shoes 
for the occasion; he carefully brushed his best 
suit and thought earnestly about his neckties, try- 
ing one and then another with a critical eye to the 
effect. After he had settled the coat in place on 
his broad shoulders he stood a long time before 
the mirror, anxious and nervous. Lou Henry 
would no doubt wear some light, fluffy, coUarless 
gown, and she was a girl besieged with partners. 
She danced well, too. After all, he had been stu- 
dent-body treasurer and a power in college politics. 

Violin strings were already twanging under 
tuning thumbs, and the first thin crowd was shift- 
ing about under the lights of Encina Gymnasium 



166 THE MAKING OF 

when the}^ arrived. An orchestra had been 
brought from San Francisco, and all day the girls 
and a few boys had been massing pepper boughs 
and bamboo about the gym apparatus against the 
w^alls. The large bare room was festive with the 
trailing leaves and scarlet berries. These unac- 
customed decorations, the lights, the floor slippery 
with shaved candle-wax, gave a formal, dressed-up 
air to the occasion. A little awkward at first. 
And here and there a chap appeared proudly in 
evening dress. The grand march was forming. 

Then the music, and the dancing, and Lou Heniy 
gay and sweet in his arms. Swirling couples all 
about them, kaleidoscope of color and light and 
motion. The waltz — one, two, skip! one, two, 
skip! And the careful reverse, guarding Her 
from colliding couples with a stiff elbow. Laugh- 
ing up at him, quite serene and sure that he danced 
well, following his lead perfectly and yet in some 
obscure way guiding him, too. And how charm- 
ingly she did the gay prancing steps of the five- 
step polka! There were eyes upon them; all the 
world saw that they were dancing together, and 
wondered a bit about it. What ! Lou Henry andj 
Bert Hoover ? And then she was swept from him] 
by clamoring partners, and he was left alonej 
against the wall, his hands in his pockets. Oh, of 
course! He must do his duty and dance -with 
some one else. But still their eves met, now and 



I 



HERBERT HOOVER 167 

then, through the circling maze, and his next 
dance with her was coming soon. 

The gay, sweet, happy hours! Light-hearted 
Time going by on dancing feet ! Music and color 
and laughter and light beneath the drooping pep- 
per boughs jeweled with berries. The senior ball 
of '95, gliding with the glamour of pomp and fash- 
ion the last days of the Pioneers. This was the 
sunset glory over the end of the little world he 
had conquered ; for he was the man who had made 
the student-body, and he was the man for whom 
there was understanding and faith in Lou Henry's 
gray eyes. 

They met again the next evening in the old 
Quad, where for the last time the Pioneers were 
together. The Quad was rimmed with rosy lan- 
terns under the deep-blue sky, little balloons of 
colored light swayed among the palms. To-mor- 
row morning in the big gymnasium beneath the 
wilted pepper boughs he would stand up to take 
from Dr. Jordan's hand the honor of his A.B. 
degree. To-morrow he would go to fight for his 
place in the world outside. To-night was his fare- 
well to Stanford. 

All the faces he knew were there, coming and 
going in the circling crowd whose feet sounded 
upon the asphalt. Upon a screen against the 
eastern tower a magic lantern cast colored pic- 
tures. The music of the band, rising toward the 



168 HEEBEET HOOVEE 

stars, shed upon them like dew a sensation of 
sadness, of immeasurable regrets and longing. 

The days of Auld Lang Syne, my dear, 
The days of Auld Lang Syne, 
"We '11 tak a cup o ' kindness yet 
For the days of Auld Lang S:^Tie. 

Lou Henry, the freshman, in her white dress, 
walked through the rosy-lighted arches, listening 
to a song that had little meaning for her heart. 
Life in Stanford was beginning for her. Three 
years were before her there, while he was going 
out to — who knew what he could make of those 
three years? 

Views of the college buildings now appeared on 
the screen. The music had changed its key, the 
clear- throated horns were singing, "Then you '11 
remember me." 

"Will you?" 

"Willi—?" 

The words choked a little. "Will you remem- 
ber me?" 

Her eyes were quite clear and frank, meeting 
his. "Of course I shall remember you." It was 
all he could ask or she could promise. The untried 
years w^ere before them both. 



I CHAPTER IV 

ON a late summer evening three months after 
the memorable Commencement Day Herbert 
Hoover, sunburned and dusty, urged a weary pony 
on a road that curved among the slopes of the 
Sierras. Around him the green sea of pines 
swept downward into purple-shadowed valleys 
and surged upward again in waves against rocky 
peaks still bright with sunshine. The chill of 
approaching night had already conquered the 
warmth of the day when the pony, scenting on the 
crisp air the promise of a cozy stable and supper, 
pricked up his ears and went forward eagerly. A 
turn in the road disclosed a huddle of weathered 
barns and beyond it a large newly painted ranch- 
house where windows were oblongs of yellow 
lamplight. 

The pony, left beside the road, sniffed the air 
hungrily and gazed with appealing eyes after his 
rider, who walked stiff -muscled up the path and 
knocked at the front door. There was a sound 
of voices inside, a faint clatter of dishes, the scrape 
of a pushed-back chair. Footsteps approached 
the door and it opened grudgingly. In the aper- 

169 



170 THE MAKING OF 

ture a squarely built, hard-faced farmer's wife 
regarded him for a moment. ^'What do you 
want 1 ' ' 

He was tired, and the greeting was not encour- 
aging. He explained briefly that he would like 
to get some supper and lodging for the night for 
himself and his — 

"We don't keep tramps," she interrupted, and 
a closing door would have ended discussion. 
But five miles lay between him and the next farm- 
house, and hunger, sharpened by the warm odor of 
food that poured through the narrowing crack, 
prodded the wayfarer to unsuspected powers of 
expression. 

"Madame," he said swiftly, "please give me a 
moment in which to explain. I assure you that 
I—" 

"I don't want to buy anything, either," she 
said with finality. But his foot was on the 
threshold and his toe resisted the pressure of the 
door. He continued to talk: 

"I 'm not a tramp, and I 'm not a book agent 
or a sewing-machine agent. I haven't anything 
to sell. I only want something to eat and a place 
to sleep and I 'm willing to pay for them. I 've 
ridden twenty-five miles to-day over the moun- 
tains and my pony is tired. I assure you I am a 
thoroughly respectable person, a geologist mth 
the United States Geological Survey. Surely you 



1 



HERBEET HOOVER 171 

can give me and my pony some kind of shelter for 
the night. I '11 be glad to pay for it, ' ' he repeated. 

^^We don't keep boarders, either, so far as that 
goes," she replied coldly, and added after a mo- 
ment's reluctance: **Well, I guess we can give 
you something to eat in the kitchen, and you can 
sleep in the barn. ' ' 

''Thank you," he said and went furiously down 
the path. But he was young enough to grin at 
the situation while he led the pony around the 
house, unsaddled him, and let him drink at the 
watering-trough in the barn-yard. There was an 
empty stall in the barn, and hay in the mow. In- 
vestigation revealed a sack of bran and a sheaf 
of unthreshed oats. He left the pony munching 
contentedly, washed his face and hands at the 
pump, and followed a path to the back porch. The 
fat cook in a soiled apron received him in the 
large kitchen and while she fried potatoes warmed 
on the wood-stove she put a loaf of bread, a dish 
of butter, and a pitcher of milk on the red-oilcloth 
covered table beside the oil lamp. 

''I guess you've come a long ways," she 
observed. 

''Yes, I 've been traveling some time. You 've 
got a fine big house here, the largest I 've seen in 
the mountains," he answered. The cook warmed 
to his smile. She began to talk, and there was 
an element of self-interest in his genuinely 



JL72 THE MAKINO OF 

friendly encouragement of her conversation. She 
sliced another potato into the frying-pan, brought 
out some eggs from the pantry, and by the time 
the piles of food had disappeared before his 
onslaught she was fetching preserves and layer- 
cake to lay before him. Meanwhile she poured 
forth confidences, gossip, and opinion. The house 
was a new one, she said, and it sure was grand, but 
lots of work to take care of, especially since the 
girls had come home from school with all sorts of 
notions. They used to be as common every-day 
folks as anybody in the mountains, but since the 
old man had sold his water-rights and moved into 
this grand big house you 'd think sometimes the 
earth was n't good enough for 'em. Silk dresses 
was nothing to them nowadays, and as for the 
ironing! And that woman that used to do the 
wash on Mondays like anybody else, now would n't 
so much as touch her hand to the rinse-water. 
The cook was in a good mind to leave any minute, 
especially since the girls had come home. They 'd 
gone to Miss Nash's Seminary at Carson. 
*^ Folks say it 's the finest seminary in the world 
west of the Carson River and east of Lake Tahoe, 
and they have come back much educated," she 
explained. 

He poured another glass of milk and attacked 
the preserves, speaking only enough to keep her 
happily talking. A grand opportunity to observe 



HERBERT HOOVER 173 

the effect of sudden riches, he thought, his face 
sober and attentive while he grinned inwardly. 
And he perceived that he was not the only one 
in the house who thought so, for, while he ate, 
the kitchen door was opened gently by an unseen 
hand and from the parlor on the other side of the 
dining-room came the tones of a parlor organ on 
which some one played ^^Home, Sweet Home'' 
with impressive technic. Obviously a benefit con- 
cert intended for him. It ended in two long- 
drawn chords, and a moment later the musician 
appeared and crossed the dining-room with care- 
fully trained grace. 

She was a pretty girl, who would have been 
prettier if she had not been so well taught to be 
conscious of her social position. She paused in 
the kitchen doorway and her eyes rested with 
hauteur upon the young man in his travel-stained 
clothes before she turned to the cook and gave 
orders for breakfast in a cool and modulated 
voice. Then she looked at him again with more 
kindliness and she spoke without lessening the 
social distance between them. 

'^Has my cook given you a good supper f 

''Yes, thank you," he rose to reply. 

''Where are you fromf 

"From Sierra Valley," he answered humbly. 
Her eyes became still more perfectly those of a 
Lady Bountiful. 



174 THE MAKING OF 

^* Would you like to see our house?'* 

^ ^ Oh, I should like it so much ! ' ' 

She led him through the dining-room, display- 
ing to his gaze real cut-glass on the sideboard; 
she showed him the library with its red walls and 
carpet and a bookcase nearly filled with books, 
many of which, bound in half -leather, were the 
most expensive sold by book agents, and then she 
took him into the parlor to show him a picture that 
a friend of hers had painted by hand, in oils. He 
followed her dutifully, cap in hand, listening with- 
out a twinkle in his eye, and he saw that she was 
probably a very jolly sort of girl that would not 
have been bad company for an evening if her 
father had not sold his water-rights. Despite his 
tramp-like appearance, she was beginning to treat 
him almost as a fellow human being. He stood 
before the hand-painted picture, gazing at it, and 
feeling that he must say something he remarked, 
*'Your house was painted brown then, I see.'' 

*^ Our house? Brown?" 

** Is n't it your house that I see in the picture?" 

He knew at once that he had cast himself back 
into the depths. She looked at him a moment 
with cold eyes and said, ''That is a picture of the 
Palisades of Tahoe." He could not reply. It 
had seemed to him that he saw quite distinctly 
on the canvas the house and the barn and a few 
trees. His hostess dismissed him with chilly 



HERBERT HOOVER 175 

courtesy at the front door, and finding his way to 
the barn he rolled himself in his saddle-blanket 
and fell asleep in the hay, his last impression of 
the pale moonlight streaming through the hay- 
mow door carrying the strains of the Moonlight 
Sonata through his dreams of Stanford. 

A warm, rasping sensation on his cheek awoke 
him in the first dawn. The family dog was lick- 
ing his face. He sat up and seized the shaggy 
body, shaking it with rough friendliness while the 
dog barked with delight. "What do you think 
you 're doing, you rascal?-being sympathetic? 
Or do you take my red skin for a beefsteak? 
Chase yourself, you scamp! Don't you see I 'm 
ringing for my valet?" He took off his shoes to 
shake the hayseed from them, ran a hand through 
his hair and put on his cap. Being struck by a 
sudden thought, he rummaged the hay-mow for 
hens' nests, finding six eggs, which he ate raw tor 
breakfast Then he went downstairs to saddle 
the pony, and with a final pat for the dog he swung 
into the saddle and rode away from the sleeping 

house. . , ,, , A 

"It 's all in the life of a geologist," he said, 
whistling as he went, and his breath curled like 
smoke in the cold pine-scented air. The mountain 
peaks were black against the clear green sky ; light 
was spreading upward from the hidden west and 
a few stars still glimmered faintly over the eastern 



176 THE MAKING OF 

forests. Altogether, it was a pretty good world 
to be alive in. 

That day he made the ascent of Slide Mountain, 
eleven thousand feet above the sea. From its 
summit he looked upon forty miles of rugged j 
peaks standing in vast and noble simplicity above 
the waters of Lake Tahoe that reflected as in a 
mirror the gaunt precipices standing like but- 
tresses from a wall, their gorges purple-shadowed 
and their granite summits lost in curling mists. 
A storm was gathering from the west and stand- , 
ing in the sunlight he watched the onslaught of j 
the thunder-rolling clouds against the battlements 
and saw the white lightning strike and strike , 
again, while in the upper air the mountains ! 
launched their eastern winds and tore the clouds 
into ragged masses and downward-fleeing columns. 
Again in the lower valleys they re-formed, heavy 
with snow, and rolling upward resistlessly they 
buried turret and pinnacle in a vast whorl of 
storm from which escaping shreds of mist circled 
the crags and clung trembling in the pine-tops 
below. Lightning and thunder and the desert 
winds fought in that turmoil and through the scat- 
tered battalions of the clouds Lake Tahoe, its clear 
pictures blotted out by the shadow of the battle, 
looked upward like a dull gray eye. The granite 
peaks and the winds from the desert conquered, 
the clouds fell back, shattered and torn to mists. 



HERBERT HOOVER 177 

leaving their snow behind them and from the 
spoils the mountains unfurled their banners of 
victory. Beneath the sunny sky each mighty peak 
gave to the winds a snowy streamer a mile in 
length, blowing like a flag from a mast-head. 

This was the country he knew and loved, this 
land of gigantic granite heights where the un- 
leashed elements fought above the forests of hun- 
dred-foot pines. The beauty of these wild and 
naked peaks struck from the hard practicality of 
his own nature a spark of poetry, and sitting on 
his saddle-bags beside a camp-fire he wrote letters 
which mingled with accurate figures of altitude 
and size descriptions of mountains and forests and 
clouds written with a power that surprised even 
himself. He could never have talked with such 
command of the picturesque phrase; his heritage 
of repression would not have allowed him to ex- 
press orally those emotions that lay within him 
as volcanic fires lay beneath the granite of the 
mountains. . 

Two weeks later, in a bare hotel room m Ne- 
vada City, he lay awake considering his plans 
for the winter. Through the open window came 
the scent of miles of forest wet with rain and the 
sound of the heavy boots and loud voices of miners 
crossing the muddy street and meeting on the 
hotel porch. The door of the bar-room slammed 
and slammed again; snatches of song and laugh- 



178 THE MAKING OF 

■» 
ter arose; at the hitching-post a weary pony- 
pawed the mud and whickered restlessly. This 
was the Bret Harte country of the old California 
mining days, remembered now only by the names 
of the little towns scattered along the roads of the 
foot-hills— You Bet, You be Dam, Red Dog, and 
Alpha. Winter was approaching, the United 
States Geological Survey was^ ending for the sum- 
mer, and he must look for work. 

It had been a profitable summer. He had had 
an interesting variety of work in the mountains, 
visiting mines, studying the succession of lavas 
in the great basin, tracing gravel channels and 
doing detailed stadia topography at disputed 
points by a species of stadia methods originated 
for the occasion. He had made a representative 
collection of Sierra igneous rocks for Stanford, 
and Lindgren had been so well pleased with his 
work that he had raised his salary. Lindgren 
would do everything possible to get him a good 
job in the mines when the survey ended. It would 
have to be a good job or none at all, for there were 
more common miners than there were jobs for 
them. Mining superintendents were in general 
college men, and disposed to help young fellows. 
Still, Stanford was a young university, and the 
University of California had the advantage in 
older prestige. Stanford's reputation in the min- 
ing world was yet to be established by men like 



HERBERT HOOVER 179 

himself, members of the Pioneer Class, and those 
who would follow them. It would be fine if he and 
Kimball could get jobs together in the mines. A 
riotous outburst from the bar-room below awak- 
ened him as he was falling asleep, and he grinned 
in the darkness. 

^'I Ve certainly had a fine chance to observe the 
relative wickedness of mountain whisky,'' he 
thought. ''That 's one line in which I haven't 
carried on any original investigation. I can take 
the other fellows' maps on that." 

The survey ended on October fifteenth and his 
hope of getting a job at something better than 
pushing an ore-car died abruptly, leaving a feeling 
of sick discouragement that he concealed under a 
cheerful manner. Mr. Lindgren's efforts to place 
him in the mines had failed, and he was left to face 
the implacable w^all of filled jobs. Superintendent 
after superintendent was sorry, but there was no 
opening at present. He swallowed his college 
pride and tried to get work as a laborer. He 
stood in groups of jobless men on the scarred hill- 
sides ; he interviewed brusk foremen in the board 
shacks that were the mine-offices. ''Nothing do- 
ing," they said. "We've got more men than 

jobs." 

He had no money. His father's legacy and all 
his own efforts for four years had gone into his 
college training. He must get a job somehow. 



180 THE MAKING OF 

He must get a foothold in the world. There was 
a girl in Stanford who expected him to make good. 

''Buck up, old man!" said Kimball, noting that 
his friend was even more silent than usual. 
''You '11 land something all right." 

' ' Sure I will, ' ' he answered cheerfully. ' ' I sup- 
pose," he added, a satirical note creeping into his 
quiet level tones, "four years of college training 
is invaluable to turn the joshes of the Cornish 
miners if for nothing more." 

But three days later he greeted Kimball, jubi- 
lant. 

"There was an unexpected opening at the Re- 
ward and I fell into it. Pushing a car at two-fifty 
per day and experience. Not so bad, with two 
hundred men idle and everybody here prejudiced 
against college men." 

The nights became a delirium of aching muscles 
and of twitching nerves torn by neuralgia. At 
four forty-five in the morning the alarm-clock 
shrilled through the darkness and he rolled from 
the tumbled bed to light the oil-lamp. Lights 
glimmered from windows here and there, and 
the shadowy street was alive with denser shadows 
and glimmering lanterns when he came out into 
the frosty morning air. He was at the shaft while 
the dawn was still reddening above the jagged 
mountain tops. 

The dark, dripping walls of the tunnel were 



HERBERT HOOVER 181 

lighted dimly by his candle. Hundreds of feet 
beneath the mountain Tommy Nennis was at work 
with drill and pick. He was a sturdy, begrimed 
miner with a rude wit and a hearty contempt for 
dudes with college educations; pushing a car for 
a real miner was good enough for 'em, by Gosh! 
It would learn them something useful before they 
got through. In the dank air, between the wet ^> 
black walls, standing ankle deep in mud, Tommy 
Nennis worked mightily with skilful dredge and 
sledge, piling up the loosened ore, and up and 
down the long tunnel Bert Hoover pushed the 
loaded car on the slimy rails. At one end of the 
trip the dimly lighted shaft cage ; at the other, 
twinkling like a firefly. Tommy Nennis' light; be- 
tween them blackness and the chill, damp breath 
of the sunless earth. Day after day, all alike. 
The life of an earthworm crawling in the dark- 
ness, accomplishing nothing, learning nothing, pil- 
ing up the ore for the mills. 

Two months of it and then one night he said to ^ 
Kimball, ^^I Ve resigned my position as assistant 
to Tommy Nennis and I '11 accept the one you 
spoke of yesterday. I know it 's a dollar less a 
day but there are compensations." 

He tipped back his chair against the wall. *^I 
wrote Dr. Branner last night," he went on. ''I 
told him that as nearly as I can determine from 
my two months' experience in mining, the differ- 



182 THE MAKING OF 

ence between mining and geology is like that be- 
tween the old-time bear-hunters and the city man. 
When they came upon bear tracks the old hunter 
became excited and started to tear through the 
brush on a dead run after the bear. But the city 
man finally ^gasped out, ^What are you doing? 
Let 's go back up the tracks and see where he 
came from!' There are some obligations in- 
curred when you reach the bear which I do not 
thoroughly appreciate as yet, and I still believe 
there is more satisfaction in seeing where he came 
from. ' ^ 

' ' That '11 please Branner, ' ' said Kimball. ' ' He 
hates to see us promising geologists degenerate 
into mere money-making miners." 

Kimball and he, when they had cleaned up and 
changed at the mine, tramped homeward in the 
late afternoons to Mrs. Fleming's, where they 
roomed. They ate enormous quantities of Mrs. 
Barker's good cooking, across the street. Then in 
the dusk they went down to the Nevada City Ho- 
tel, hoping to run across engineers or big mining 
men from the city. These men, brought into the 
mountains by business, kept there overnight, were 
bored by waiting and glad to talk to young college 
men. In the warm barroom, whose closed doors 
shut out the wild cold darkness of the Sierra night, 
they lounged against the rail and talked, ordering 
a drink occasionally. 



k HERBERT HOOVER 183 

*I '11 take a cigar, thanks/' said Bert, and 
smoking it he listened to talk of mines and min- 
ing in Africa, Australia, Russia and Abyssinia. 
A large world, stimulating the imagination, spur- 
ring a tethered ambition. 

**If my college education can't get me any- 
thing better than pushing an ore-car for a living 
I 'd better quit mining," he said one night, in 
grim determination. George Hoffman, the min- 
ing engineer to whom he said it, looked at him 
thoughtfully. 

^*Why don't you go after a job with Louis 
JaninI He has a habit of picking up young men 
and placing them pretty well. It might be worth 
trying." 

'*It 's a good idea," he replied after considering 
it for a moment. That night he packed his clothes 
and some specimens for Stanford, and in the 
morning he was on the San Francisco train. 

Louis Janin's office was over the Anglo-Cali- 
fornia Bank on the corner of Pine and Sansome 
streets. Determination restrained the young 
man's quivering excitement as he walked up 
the flight of stairs and opened the door marked 
JANIN. It was a small room, unoccupied at the 
moment. An open door, and beyond it, in the 
inner office, sat an elderly Frenchman, plump, 
kindly-looking, lost in concentrated attention to 



184 THE MAKING OF 

some papers on the flat-topped desk before him. 
'^Mr. JaiimV 

The famous mining expert looked up and 
smiled. ''Good morning. What can I do for 
you?" 

''You can give me a job." 

Louis Janin leaned back, crossed his hands upon 
his waistcoat, and considered the applicant, a 
twinkle in his eye. 

"Perhaps. Sit down and we will talk about 
it." 

He spoke as earnestly as he could. A Stanford 
education in mineralogy and mining ; two summers 
with the United States Geological survey in the 
Sierras; three months' experience in practical 
mining. He was eager to get any work that 
promised a future opportunity. He came to 
Janin because of Janin 's reputation and experi- 
ence. Could he get a foothold of any kind in that 
office? 

"Hm — two summers in the Sierras? With 
Lindgren ? Have you any references ? " 

"I did not bring any, Mr. Janin. I can get 
them.'' 

"Do that, please. You understand that what 
I can give you to do will depend upon the confi- 
dence I can place in your integrity, and you are 
unknown to me. Bring me some letters, by all j 
means. In the meantime, stay around the office. 



HERBERT HOOVER 1B5 

I can find something to keep you busy. Some- 
thing may develop that will give you a good oppor- 
tunity/' 

He let loose his excitement as he went down 
the stairs. He was with Janin! He felt like 
flinging his hat into the air and whooping aloud. 
He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and 
strode quickly down the street toward a ferry car. 
Theodore and his sister May were living in Oak- 
land; he hastened to tell them the news and to 
write to Dr. Branner at Stanford for a letter to 
Mr. Janin. 

The job carried thirty dollars a month, less 
than with Tommy Nennis, but it was an oppor- 
tunity better than any money. When Dr. Bran- 
ner 's strong recommendation earned by his four 
years at Stanford was in Janin 's hands, he was 
given a task upon which to focus all his expe- 
rience. His quick decision to come to San Fran- 
cisco had brought him into Janin 's office at the 
moment when that expert was working on a case 
involving the geology of the Sierras, the very 
strata he had so recently tested and mapped. It 
was fresh in his mind, he knew every detail of it; 
his knowledge was invaluable to Janin. He 
worked indefatigably on that case, drawing up 
reports, sketching maps, preparing geological 
demonstration slides. It was a good piece of 
work; the North Star case was won with its help; 



186 THE MAKING OF 

lie was asked to write an article for the *' Mining 
and Scientific Press '^ about it. And six week.^ 
later he was on his way to New Mexico at a salary 
of thirty dollars a week and expenses. 

A flat expanse of sand and sage-brush, quiver- 
ing in white heat. Mexican huts, naked brown 
babies, sweating water-jugs hanging in the shade. 
Interminable miles of driving behind panting 
ponies. Mining-camps in full bloom; gamblers, 
prospectors, Mexicans, saloon-keepers, and 
smooth plausible promoters, hot-eyed with the 
gold fever, thronging the narrow streets between 
the raw lumber buildings, drinking at the bars, 
brawling on the sidewalks. Sixty-three mines to 
consider with sober judgment, to investigate, 
sample, make reports upon. The fortunes of 
many men and his own future hanging upon his 
decisions. 

He traveled with a six-shooter ready to his hand 
and a rifle-guard at his back, for part of his work 
was mapping the Lessees Carlisle Gold Mines, andi 
there were prospectors who threatened to kill himi 
if he appeared on their ground with a transit. 
The superintendent of the mines at Carlisle had 
been killed by his Mexicans. The towns were in 
full bloom, dance-halls, saloons, and gambling- 
joints wide open, and the law was represented by 
a justice of the peace who suffered from delirium 



HERBERT HOOVER 187 

tremens and a blind-tunnel which was used as a 
jail by the sober citizens. 

With a big cow-boy named Connors he rode to 
the MohoUone Mountains, ninety miles across the 
shimmering desert, to investigate some prospects 
reported there. He slept at night beneath the 
stars, a saddle-blanket rolled into a pillow and a 
lariat coiled around the camp to discourage wan- 
dering rattlesnakes. He rode by day under the 
hot sun, alkali dust on his lips and in his nostrils, 
and watched the mocking hills that seemed so near 
and took so long to reach. Wlaen the travelers 
reached them at last they found, as they rounded 
a curve of the land, a dozen swarthy, desperate- 
looking men with cartridge-belts and holsters at 
their hips, gathered around a camp fire. 

"Prospectors," said Connors, taking in at a 
glance the camp and the pack-burros grazing in 
the sage-brush. "Gun loaded? You can't some- 
times 'most always tell about what you 're gomg 
to run against around here." 

They rode slowly forward, and one of the men 
rose and came to meet them. He was unshaven 
haggard, his lined face and gnarled hands burned 
deep by years of sun on the desert. The long 
patience of deferred hope in his eyes was lighted 
by a moment's eagerness. "You men got any 
medicine with you ? One of us ismighty sick, and 
we can't seem to do nothing for him." 



188 THE MAKING OF 

They swung down from the saddles. The sict 
man lay on a blanket sheltered from the sun by e 
canvas fly. His comrades had given him whisk} 
and quinine without effect ; there was nothing more 
that they could do ; the nearest doctor was a hun-' 
dred miles away and the man was dying. The 
new-comers had brought nothing that could help 
him. Herbert Hoover could only make him more 
comfortable, straightened his blanket, bathing his 
face and hands with cooling water. His com- 
rades, relapsed into stolid hopelessness, stood or 
sat about the wisp of fire on which the coffee-pot 
boiled. At sunset the man opened his eyes and 
for some time regarded Herbert Hoover atten- 
tively. Then he beckoned him to lean closer. 

^*Can you write?" 

^^Yes." 

^' There 's a girl — in Kentucky. Write to her — 
and say — " 

Crouched beside the blanket, his note-book on 
his knee, he took down the name and address of 
the girl in Kentucky and listened to the things that 
he must write her. He was there beside the 
blanket when the man died. 

The next morning Connors approached him 
awkwardly. '^ Those fellows want you to say 
something," he said. *^You know — at the 
funeral." 



HERBERT HOOVER 189 

"Aw, Connors! I can't do anything like that. 
I would n 't know how. ' ' 

"It ain't hardly decent to plant him without 
somebody saying something, and you 're a darn 
sight nearer being a minister than the rest of us. 
These men, you know, they 've been traveling with 
him a long time. He 's sort of a pardner of theirs, 
and they want things done right for him. They 
been talking it over, and they picked you. ' ' _ 

They had finished wrapping the body m a 
blanket, tied about with ropes. Their prospect- 
or's shovels had dug the grave in the sand. 
Everything was as decently in order as they could 
make it, and now they stood helplessly, waitmg. 
His eyes filled suddenly with tears. "I guess 
it 's up to me," he said in a hard, practical voice. 
"I '11 do my best." 

He stood at the head of the grave with the ring 
of silent weather-worn men around it, and with 
painful effort, pausing between the sentences, he 
spoke to them of God who forgives all trans- 
gressions and comforts all sorrows, and who holds 
the earth in His hands, so that it 's all right, 
somehow. Awkwardly, with bowed heads and 
stumbling memories, they followed him in the 
Lord's Praver, and then quietly they filled the 
grave, smoothed its top with their spades, and 
made a small mound of sticks and stones upon it. 



190 THE MAKING OF 

One by one they wrung his hand, and he and Con- 
nors rode away. 

The memory of that file of rough men, som- 
breros in hand, silently carrying away the blan- 
keted body to bury it in that desolate land, re- 
mained vividly with him for a long time. He 
wrote as gently as possible to the girl in Ken- 
tucky, and tried to put the memor}^ away from 
him. But it persisted. He was only twenty-two, 
and every day death stood at his own shoulder. 
He learned then to face it without lowering his 
eyes, and in the test his untried youth was tem- 
pered and hardened to the spirit of a man. 

There was for him no intoxication of excitement 
in the dangers he faced. His nature, so balanced 
and temperate, would no more become drunken 
with life than with liquor. At the root of his love 
of living lay not only the human sense-delights of 
sun and food and movement, but also that stern 
sense of moral duty that is the American religion. 
The value of life was not enjoyment but accom- 
plishment; it lay not in emotional or spiritual 
values but in the concrete task completed. He 
faced death unwillingly but courageously because 
to face it was part of the day's work and work 
was life. 

^'You boys better look out for rattlers," he said 
one evening at a supper table where a group of 
young American mining men were hastily filling 



HERBERT HOOVER 191 

empty stomachs with Mexican food. ''I stepped 
on one in a shaft to-day. '^ 

Their excited questions compelled details. ''I 
was going down to examine an old shaft. You 
know those rotten rickety ladders that go down 
into black darkness. Well, I was going down 
backward, feeling with my feet to see that the 
rungs were solid, and all of a sudden in the dark 
I stepped on something soft. It was a big rattler 
coiled around the rung. The mines that have n't 
been worked lately are probably full of them.'' 

*^What didyoudo?" 

^^What do you think I did! I went out of that 
shaft like forty-two winged acrobats and landed 
on top paler than a flour-mill, of course. Just 
the same, he got me three times, but luckily I was 
wearing thick corduroys, so his fangs didn't get 
through to the skin." 

''Welir' 

' ' That 's all. I tied a lighted candle on a strmg 
next time I went down, you bet. He ^ was stdl 
there, so I shot him with my revolver." 

'^And went on down that shaft!" 

' ' Naturally. He was dead. ' ' 

^^You darned old idiot! Don't you know his 
mate was around there somewhere, waiting for 

you?" 

''Gee whiz! I never thought of that." He 
did not say that if he had thought of it his action 



192 THE MAKING OF 

would have been the same. It was his job to 
examine that mine. 

It was his job, too, to make reports on the mines 
he examined. With Lindgren he had been an 
assistant, working on reports always subject to 
the supervision of an older and experienced man. 
Here he stood alone on his own responsibility, and 
his reports involved fortunes and all the human 
antagonisms that center about money. Not only 
his technical authority was at stake, but his repu- 
tation for sound judgment and for an honesty that 
could not be bought. The strain upon him did not 
end with the making of minutely painstaking re- 
ports ; he must stand by them, unswerved by crit- 
icism, unchanged in his opinion by counter-reports 
of experts older than he. He went through days 
and nights of anxiety after his report that the 
Green Mountain Mine was salted. Experts dis- 
agreed upon it, and the force of their authority 
was augmented by doubts of himself that crept 
through his own mind. He knew that he was 
young; he knew that even experienced experts 
sometimes made errors. But on this question of 
the Green Mountain Mine he was as sure as a man 
could be that he was right, and he stood firm. He 
held to his opinion even when it was so doubted 
that the Anglo-Californian Bank of San Francisco 
sent its own experts to examine the mine and re- 
port upon his reports. But his hidden doubts of 



HERBERT HOOVER 193 

himself became nightmare certainties during the 
long nights that were so hot he could not sleep. 
When at last the new expert opinion confirmed his 
own, his deep breath of relief was like the breaking 
of a constriction upon him ; he expanded, and felt 
himself an older and an abler man. He looked 
back with surprise upon himself as he had been 
only a few months earlier. A gulf widened be- 
tween him and the boy who had pushed the ore- 
car for Tommy Nennis ; he was amazed by the re- 
alization that he was the same person. 

He lay awake one night in a curtainless, uncar- 
peted room through whose warped board floor 
came sounds of riot from the saloon below. It 
was midnight, but he could not sleep. He had a 
decision to make. That day he had received a 
letter from Lindgren, intimating that he could 
now go back into the work of the United States 
Geological Survey. At the same time Janin had 
made him resident engineer in New Mexico, nom- 
inally assistant superintendent. He stood at a 
fork in the road, compelled to decide his future. 
Geology, or mining? 

He wished to be a geologist. Dr. Branner's 
teaching and his own scientific mind inclined him 
to follow science for its own sake. Science— that 
clear, selfless passion for knowledge that is the 
difference between man and the other animals, 
that endess search whose slowly accumulated 



194 THE MAKING OF 

store is the real wealth of mankind. He could do 
good work in science; he knew it. On the other 
hand, mining — the application of present scien- 
tific knowledge to the practical affairs of men; 
getting out from the stubborn earth the metals 
that make civilization possible: steel for tall 
buildings, for railroads, for the machines of a 
world created by machinery; coal, whose posses- 
sion makes and unmakes nations; gold, the life- 
blood of international commerce. 

It was a materialistic age, a pragmatic age. 
And he was a son of that young pioneer nation 
whose rewards went to men whose work showed 
immediate, practical results. There was the per- 
sonal problem : could he make a living as a geolo- 
gist? Could he make enough to support a wife 
and family, to lift them above the fear of want 
and crippling semi-poverty? The world did not 
reward its scientists; it did not even feed them. 
Yet he would have liked to be one. 

If he abandoned mining now and went to the 
work he loved in the Sierras he must face the 
probability of being forced some day to return to 
mining in order to live and provide for his future. 
He would come back as an older man ; he would be 
obliged to ask help of men who had forged ahead 
while he was standing still. They would know 
that he had once had a splendid opportunity as a 
young mining man and had given it up. His new 



HERBERT HOOVER 195 

position in Janin's service reawakened half -terri- 
fying doubts of his own ability; he was not sure 
that he could do the work. To leave it would be 
to quit an uncertain battle; he would never know 
whether or not he could have won it, and that 
question, which he might have to meet in the eyes 
of other mining men, he would not be able easily 
to face in his own. 

Clearly in his own mind he set down the parallel 
columns of arg-ument, for geology and for min- 
ing. At the bottom he added figures: Salary, 
United States Geological Survey, twelve hundred 
dollars a year; with Janin, two thousand a year. 
The money made very little diiference now. It 
all came down to the question. Could he succeed 
better as a mining man or as a geologist? 

It was a decision so important that he deter- 
mined to ask advice. He pulled down the window- 
shade, shutting out the arch of stars above the 
wide dark plain, and lighting the lamp sat down 
to write to Dr. Branner, the good friend at Stan- 
ford whose interest in his career had never failed. 

The answer came two weeks later. He rode 
into town and stood in the crowded post-office at 
mail-time to receive it, and on the edge of the side- 
walk he tore open the envelope and read quickly 
three pages of sober discussion of the problem. 
On the typewritten page he saw lucidly set forth 
his prospects of great success in mining, and his 



196 THE MAKING OF 

probable future as a geologist in which he must 
expect his reward to be largely in the honor he 
might win in his own small group. Dr. Branner 
and Dr. Jordan had considered his letter carefully, 
in the light of their greater knowledge of the 
world and their understanding of his own char- 
acter and ability. The letter ended in nine words 
of the advice for which he had asked. 

He folded the letter and put it in his pocket. 
''Stay where you are." That was the advice of 
his good friend who himself served pure science 
with all the passion of his fine mind and all the 
energy of his life ; it was the advice of a man who 
loved science and knew the life of a scientist. "It 
is a considerable risk for one who must have bread 
and butter.'' 

"Large interests . . . run like big machines. 
Promotion ... in the employ of such financiers, 
may lead to as good a position as there is in 
mining engineering." That meant success, 
power, great wealth. It meant, sometime, a 
secure future in which a man might be safe and 
free to do disinterested work. H* he succeeded. 

Across the street the landlord beat on the din- 
ner gong. Sleek, white-fingered gamblers, cow- 
boys with handkerchiefs around their necks, a 
dusty engineer or two, crossed the hot road and 
went through the swinging screen door of the one- 
story restaurant. A ragged Mexican miner 



HERBERT HOOVER 197 

slouched out of the post-office and went toward 
the nearest saloon, his feet raising little plops of 
white dust. At the end of the short street 
stretched the wide sterile land, parched and dead, 
giving birth to no green thing, feeding only, from 
its dark mines, these desolate bare towns. No. 
Doing more than that. Feeding the big machines 
of modern civilization, itself part of the big ma- 
chine; its mines linked by a common ownership 
with the Anaconda of Butte, the Oneida of Cal- 
ifornia, the Kimberley diamond-fields, the Rand 
and the Crown Reef in Africa, and scores of other 
great mines. All of them pouring their gold, 
jewels, copper, coal, into the hands of the big men 
at the center of the machine that covered the 
world. 

He, too, was part of that machine, that gigantic 
organization of human lives and material things 
—thousands of Mexicans, black Africans, and 
Chinese; miners, engineers, promoters, bankers; 
laboratories, mills, railroads, ships; raw gold in 
the earth, minted gold in the vaults ; international 
credit, stock-markets, laws, diplomacy behind the 
thrones of Europe. A young man, barely twenty- 
two, standing in dust-grimed, sweat-stained 
clothes on the rickety porch of the post-office in an 
ugly little New Mexican mining town, he was al- 
ready in the great game. Only a little way in, 
still unnoticed among the thousands on the outer 



198 THE MAKING OF 

edge of the huge circle, but in it now for all he 
was worth ; in it to win ! 

^ ' The man who looks after his employers ' inter- 
ests is often promoted rapidly, w^hile the one who 
doesn't enter into the spirit of the work — '' 
His mind was no longer divided. The spirit of 
the work was his, now, and would be. Mining, 
mine-development, mine-organization, gold, iron, 
steel — they were his job. Some day he would be 
in the center of the big machine. 

Unconsciously he had thrust his hands deep into 
his pockets, leaning forward a little, tense. He 
relaxed, now, and grinned, remembering Kim- 
ball's rueful, half-serious complaint: ''It isn't so 
much being young that handicaps us : it 's not 
having a mustache!" 

He came into San Francisco that winter, sun- 
burned brown, smiling confidently, with the record 
of a good summer's work behind him. Louis 
Janin received him with commendations. The big 
firm of Bewick, Moreing in London had asked 
Janin to recommend a young American mining 
man to send to Australia; salary, nine hundred 
and sixty pounds, almost five thousand dollars a 
year. Did Mr. Hoover want the job? 

His self-confidence melted within him, leaving 
him a hollow shell upheld by a desperate deter- 
mination. The job was too big for him; he knew 
it. He had not the knowledge, the experience, 



HERBERT HOOVER 199 

the ability, that could possibly be worth five thou- 
sand dollars a year. But he wanted the oppor- 
tunity, and the salary was a fortune. 

' ' Do you think I can do the work, Mr. Janin ? ' ' 
^^You can't tell until you try. I 'm willing to 
recommend you for it. Bewick, Moreing want 
something they cannot get, anyhow; they write 
that they must have a man not more than thirty 
years old, with seventy-five years' experience. A 
man over thirty can't stand the Australian climate 
and living conditions, they say, and it needs a man 
of seventy-five to handle their problems down 
there." He chuckled. ^' Think it over, and let 
me know." 

He thought it over. The Australian mining- 
boom was on the wane; English firms, with scores 
of mines bought in the days of feverish excite- 
ment, were clamoring for American men to help 
them handle the difficulties of reorganization and 
management. It was a great opportunity, if he 
could make good. It was five thousand a year. 
It was a job too big for him. But if Janin was 
willing to recommend him he would be a coward 
to quit before he was beaten. He could at least 
go down fighting. 

Janin 's recommendation of him went to London, 
and a sense of anxious waiting gnawed at the back 
of his mind. He made flying trips into Wyoming 
and Nevada for Janin, cleaning up little jobs. He 



200 N THE MAKING OF 

met and compared experiences with the old Stan- 
ford crowd; G. B. Wilson, Kimball, Mitchell, Fol- 
som, Lester Hinsdale, and Sam Collins. There 
was a jolly Christmas celebration in the little 
Berkeley cottage where Cousin Harriette and Sis- 
ter May were now keeping house for him and 
Theodore. There was a decorated Christmas 
tree, an enormous dinner, and an evening around 
the fire, where he and Sam Collins popped corn 
and teased the girls and he told mining tales. But 
all the while he was uneasy, with the thought of 
Australia alternately flushing and chilling him. 
Suddenly there was a flurry of cablegrams dis- 
cussing terms and dates, a week when he haunted 
Janin's office and started at the peal of the tele- 
phone, and it was settled. Five hundred dollars 
was cabled for his expenses; Bewick, Moreing 
engaged to deposit four hundred dollars a month 
to his credit in the Anglo-California- Bank. He 
was to leave at once for Australia, by way of 
London. 

It was incredible as a fairy tale. New York! 
London! Italy, the Mediterranean, the Suez 
Canal, Ceylon and AustraHa ! Five thousand dol- 
lars a year! His quiet self-control for once was 
flung away; he burst into the Berkeley cottage, 
whooping, waving the final cablegram. ''Tad! 
Girls ! It ^s settled ! I 'm off for a trip around 
the world !'^ They fell on him with shrieks and 



HERBERT HOOVER 201 

tears and laughter; they danced around the din- 
ing-room table ; they celebrated with the biggest 
dinner the girls had ever cooked, every light in 
the house ablaze, flowers on the table, every one 
interrupting everybody else. 

^'You 11 have to have some new clothes — '' 
''And a traveling-bag, and shoes. There 's a 
sale down at — " 

''Think of seeing Westminster Abbey! Oh, 
Bert, do you suppose — '' 

"And the Alps, and the Mediterranean!" 

"You '11 be meeting all kinds of big people—'' 

The thought of the job was like a cold wind 

blowing upon him at intervals. "See here, 

there 's no guarantee that I 'm going to be able to 

make good, you know." 

' ' Make good ! Of course you '11 make good ! ' ' 
There were serious consultations the next day, 
and the next, with Theodore and G. B. Wilson and 
Lester Hinsdale. What about clothes? What 
did one wear in London? 

"You will absoMely have to have a frock-coat 
and a tall hat, ' ' they decided. ' ' And a good busi- 
ness suit, or maybe two." 

"A Scotch tweed, made with a cutaway coat, 
would be a good idea," Lester Hinsdale advised. 
"And see here, old man, you must have them made 
by a tailor. It 's expensive, but everything de- 
pends on making a good first impression." 



202 THE MAKING OF 

They went with him to a tailor's, helped him 
choose materials, and stood by while he was 
measured. The suits cost forty-five dollars each. 
A lot of money, but it should be looked upon as a 
business investment. *^And another thing, Bert: 
you 'd better raise a mustache, and possibly a 
beard. It will make you look older and more dig- 
nified.'^ 

**I Ve thought of that already, and decided to 
do it," he replied. 

He took Lester Hinsdale aside and talked to him 
about his business affairs. There would be four 
hundred a month deposited in the bank; he had 
promised to send three people through college, and 
surely there would be other Stanford undergrad- 
uates in need of a little help. Hinsdale, doing 
graduate work in Stanford, and treasurer of the 
student body, would be in touch with the boys 
and girls there, and in a position to help wisely. 
Would he take a power of attorney and handle the 
money? 

^^It 's ambitious boys and girls I want to help, 
you understand. I have n 't any use for the kind 
that thinks the world owes them a living. But 
there 's a lot of men down there that are working 
hard, and just a little money now and then would 
pull them over the steep places. Just a loan that 
they won't have to pay back until they 're able 
to do it. And I '11 give you a list of the amounts 



HERBERT HOOVER 203 

I want paid regularly every month. I '11 be tre- 
mendously obliged if you '11 handle it for me.'' 

^^I'llbe gladto doit, Bert." 

The power of attorney was legally made out and 
recorded at the bank. The suits were delivered, 
tried on one by one for the girls to admire, and 
packed. There was a last talk with Janin, a last 
quick trip of farewell to Stanford. And in an 
April evening when the lights were beginning to 
twinkle along the misty shore-lines, he crossed 
San Francisco Bay for the last time, said good-by 
to Tad and the girls and Hinsdale at the Sixteenth- 
Street Oakland station, and began the long jour- 
ney. 

A thousand miles, and a thousand miles, and 
another thousand miles, streaming backward past 
him. Over the Rocky Mountains again, down 
across the Colorado and Dakota deserts, past the 
level fertile plains of the Mississippi Valley that 
stirred dim memories of his childhood, roaring 
through the smoke of Pittsburgh, past steel-mills 
and factories and across discolored rivers and 
torn hillsides. The young April green of the 
Alleghanies, splashed with the snow of dogwood 
blossoms. Then the roar and ceaseless motion 
of the great machine that was New York. 

New York ! Stone and steel ; hard, implacable ; 
fed by endless streams of human traffic. The 
heart of the new America, where the backward- 



204 THE MAKING OF 

turning currents of the energy that had conquered 
a contingent converged, were gathered together 
for the new pioneering adventure into the trade 
of the world. Wall Street. The House of J. P. 
Morgan. New giants, arisen to new gigantic 
battles. Something there to stir the blood, to 
quicken and fire the young ambition of twenty- 
three ! 

Already the old world called to the youngest 
nation for help. England, ^vith her traditions, her 
centuries-old pride, her i^ded universities, was not 
producing the men who could carry the whole bur- 
den of her far-flung business battles ; it was Amer- 
ican energYy American imagination and initiative, 
American organizing ability, that she needed to 
handle her Australian mines. That was the rea- 
son Bewick, Moreing reached around the world 
to take him, fresh from America's youngest uni- 
versity. Take care, England ! The young Amer- 
icans are coming! Young America is rising on 
the crest of the great commercial centuries! 
There will yet be a day when the mines of the 
world, the trade of the world, the life of the world, 
will be dominated by New York. The kingdoms 
and the thrones are moving westward ! 

Only a glimpse of the Great Game came to him, 
a young man on the edge of it. The clashing of 
gigantic forces in terrific battle echoed faintly 
from those silent, implacable walls of stone, from 



HERBERT HOOVER 205 

the heavy columns and powerful steel doors of the 
great banking-houses. He was unknown there, a 
youth lost in the floods of unregarded humanity. 
He was going out to be one of the thousand of 
small cogs in the big machine, and he was facing 
with doubt and trembling the work he would have 
to do in a job too big for him. He braced himself 
to meet it, fortifying himself with thoughts of the 
forty-five-dollar suits made by a tailor, and ten- 
derly nursing the growing mustache and beard. 

The huge passenger liner moved out of the 
harbor past the Goddess of Liberty, upholding 
her light above the dwindling shore line of Amer- 
ica. The wide gray seas took the ship and made 
her a speck floating in illimitable space. Seven 
days and nights in a tossing cabin with the miser- 
ies of seasickness. Liverpool, seen dimly through 
air that still lifted and sank with the movement of 
a ship on the sea. A strange little train, with 
compartments, third class, second class, first 
class. London. 

An old city, a gray city, a bewildering city; vast, 
chaotic. Hideous poverty huddled at the feet of 
heedless riches. Strange accents, strange baffling 
customs. An air of leisure, a flavor of the past, 
in the offices of the City. Afternoon tea. Stately 
old club-rooms paneled in wood. He was silent, 
observing it all, irritated, self-distrustful, strug- 
gling with the unfamiliar. He had made a good 



206 THE MAKING OF 

impression on Moreing ; that ordeal was over. He 
felt that his new suits had failed him; he dis- 
carded the tweed cutaway coat. But no doubt the 
beard had helped; he passed for twenty-eight 
or nine. Age counted too much with these people ; 
the past was a ball-and-chain on their feet. Youth 
was the conquering spirit. The new, the untried, 
was the path that led forward. America's feet 
were on it. 

With relief he began the last stage of the jour- 
ney that circled three quarters of the earth. The 
steward on the luxurious P. and 0. boat explained 
that he could not enter the dining-saloon after six 
o'clock unless he was wearing evening clothes. 
He did not possess any. He explained that he was 
an American and would dress as he pleased and 
eat when he was hungry. The steward capit- 
ulated, and he dined uncomfortably in blue serge. 
But he resolved to buy a dress suit at the first 
opportunity. He had entered a new world. 

League after league stretched between him and 
home. Gibraltar. Brindisi, the heel of the Ital- 
ian boot. The Mediterranean, blue as San Fran- 
cisco Bay. Port Said and the Suez Canal, that 
had been marks on maps when he studied geog- 
raphy in the Pacific Academy. Aden, strange- 
colored and foreign. Colombo in Ceylon, the edge 
of the world. Then over the edge of the world, 
and farther still, miles upon miles of the restless 



I 



HERBEET HOOVER 207 

sea sliding backward. And above the restless 
waters rode the low shore-line of Australia, the 
oldest continent on the earth, a land so old that 
the centuries had worn away its mountain ranges 
and lost its rivers. 

A basket swung on a cable carried him over the 
surf to his landing in the little white town of 
Albany. The railroad was not yet built to Cool- 
gardie ; a train would take him as far as Southern 
Cross, where he would be met with a team. The 
fringe of green farms about Albany vanished 
behind him; through the car windows he saw a 
desert danced upon by little devils of whirling 
dust. A barren, abandoned land, frozen in the 
terrible cold of the June winter ; a monster luring 
human beings to torture and death with its bared 

gold. 

An English cart met him at Southern Cross, 
with a ^^ unicorn" team— two horses ininning 
abreast and a third in front. The road was three 
ruts in the iron-like earth; only the center one 
smooth and packed by the soft padding of camels. 
On each side rose a six-foot wall of mulga bush, a 
fantastic tangle of black shrubs that shivered in 
the icy wind. Twenty miles to Coolgardie, 
through a cold like an Arctic night, and he drove 
into a little city of corrugated-iron shacks and 
houses walled with tin and burlap. 

As great business houses might build of marble 



208 THE MAKING OF 

at home, they built here of the precious wood 
brought from Puget Sound. The office of Bewick, 
Moreing^s London and West Australian company 
was a square box of lumber on the bleak main 
street. Beside a red-hot stove he listened to the 
talk of the manager he was relieving, glanced 
over reports, saw vaguely the chaos of disorgan- 
ization he was inheriting. Then they drove to 
the house that was to be his. 

It was a large, low bungalow with a wide ver- 
anda facing the endless miles of desert. A Lon- 
don company, capitalizing the eagerness of young 
Englishmen to go to the colonies, had built the 
house for the manager of the Hampton Plains 
colonization scheme. The land was abandoned 
now to return to the grip of the desert; only the 
house remained, a perquisite of Bewick, More- 
ing's resident manager. Cook and valet went 
with it, and handsome furniture and rugs brought 
by ship from London. 

Here he was installed, and here for the succeed- 
ing few weeks he lived, untangling by day the 
many details of his new work, embarrassed morn- 
ing and evening by the obsequious '^Yes, sir,'' 
*'No, sir,'' of the English valet, a man older than 
he. Obviously he must buy a dress suit as soon 
as he could get to Perth; he must maintain his 
dignity. It was convenient to have his clothes 



HERBERT HOOVER 209 

brushed, his shoes shined, his bath drawfi, leaving 
his attention free for office problems, but the 
man's silent comment upon him was disquieting; 
it implied a suspicion that the new American man- 
ager was very young. 

The effort to conceal his youth was a constant 
annoyance; a small detail amid the mass of diffi- 
culties he encountered, but no more to be forgot- 
ten than a pebble in the shoe. As resident man- 
ager he found himself the superior of two Amer- 
ican mining experts, graduates of Columbia, with 
whom he would have been glad to be friends. But 
the subject of college days was too dangerous; he 
talked with them guardedly, watchful not to be- 
tray that he was of the Pioneer Class at Stan- 
ford and that he held an A.B. degree not two 
years old. In the presence of his surveyors and 
assayers and clerks he maintained a lofty and 
unnatural dignity that guarded the secret of his 
scant twenty-three years, and he was daily grate- 
ful for the disguise of drooping mustache and 
lengthening beard that hid the boyishness of his 
mouth. He was maintaining precariously a posi- 
tion of authority in a country filled with mining 
engineers older than himself who had been left 
stranded without work when the boom broke. A 
hundred eager eyes were upon his 30b, and there 
were hours when discouragement before his diffi- 



210 THE MAKING OF 

culties would have made him willing to give it up 
if he could have done so without admitting to 
himself that he was a quitter. 

The tasks he had to do loomed in monumental 
and chaotic heaps before him. The collapse of 
the mining boom had left scores of London com- 
panies with hastily purchased, undeveloped or 
^ badly equipped mines upon their hands. Over a 
hundred and twenty million dollars had been in- 
vested by the British public in West Australian 
mining schemes, and of this enormous sum all 
but ^ve millions had gone into the pockets of the 
promoters. The five millions left for working- 
capital had been spent lavishly and inefficiently in 
a country where legitimate mining-costs were al- 
most prohibitive. Now the Bewick, Moreing Com- 
pany was taking over the properties as actual 
mining operators, and the resident manager of 
the Coolgardie office was expected to produce real 
ore in paying quantities from the mines under his 
control. 

The cost of lumber for mine-timbers was $1.75 
a running foot. Fresh water for milling proc- 
esses was unobtainable anywhere on the West 
Australian desert; six-hundred-foot wells were dry 
and one-thousand-foot diamond borings did not 
yield enough water by pumping to feed the pump 's 
boilers. Salt water sold for $6.25 a thousand 
gallons, and the cost of distilling for drinking- 



HERBERT HOOVER 211 

purposes added $10.00. It was used undistiUed 
for milling, at a cost of $2.00 for each ton of ore. 
And the British public was clamoring for a return 
on its investments. 

In his struggles to find a point at which the 
over-capitalization and enormous operatmg- 
costs would be met by the output of the mmes the 
new manager encountered another condition 
startling and appalling to all the instincts of 
American individualism. The government ot 
Australia owned all Australian railroads and 
mines. It was impossible to secure a freehold to 
mining property; mines could be held only on 
leases terminating in twenty years. Since the 
miners were a small minority of Austraha's pop- 
ulation, the government was in fact the frmge ot 
farmers along the coasts, who naturally placed 
upon the miners as large a share of the taxation 
as was possible. Miners and farmers formed two 
rival factors in governmental affairs, and the 
effort of the miners to have new railroads built 
from the gold-fields to the nearest harbor was 
defeated by the farmers around Perth, who did 
not want a rival coast town established. Bewick, 
Moreing had been right when they wrote that they 
needed a man with seventy-five years' experience 
to handle their problems in West Austraha. 

It was the health of twenty-three, however, that 
resisted the fierce cold of the July and August 



212 THE MAKING OF 

days when raging storms came down from the 
skies upon the flat desert country and flooded it 
with icy water that resisted freezing only because 
its contact with the alkaline earth made lakes of 
brine. The lumber walls of the office shook in the 
teeth of the winds and the iron roofs of Coolgardie 
wailed aloud. Trains of pack-camels brought 
from the Gobi desert to that reversed climate on 
the other side of the Equator lay huddled in the 
streets and moaned in their coats of thin summer 
hair. Herbert Hoover, when he rode out on his 
first trip of inspection, saw that the groom packed 
plenty of blankets beneath the seat of the trap. 

He inspected fourteen mines on that trip, and 
condemned ten of them. Fortunes in England and 
on the Continent hung on his decision; millions 
of dollars had been invested in those prospects. 
But his careful figuring brought the relentless 
facts : the costs of development were too high, the 
mines would not pay for it. 

**I Ve been called in to mend the lame ducks, '^ 
he said. ''The only way is to begin by killing 
the bad ones immediately.'' And the London of- 
fice by cable confirmed his decisions. 

He came back to Coolgardie, sent in his reports 
by cable, and began a thorough reorganization of 
the office and the mines, cutting expenses, dis- 
carding non-essentials, discharging men and re- 
placing them with harder workers. As soon as 



HERBERT HOOVER 213 

possible he was cabling home for American men, 
Stanford men, to help him. He made enemies, but 
he must take that as part of the day's work. He 
had undertaken a tremendous task; he had to do 
it and do it well; the sooner it was accomplished 
the more quickly he would be free for a bigger 
job in a country where a man could ask a white 
woman to live. In the meantime he buried him- 
self in work; he worked the night through more 
than once, and the midnights usually found him 
engrossed in plans and estimates or writing the 
letters that were his only link with home and 
Stanford. 

September brought the spring; the desert burst 
suddenly into bloom, thousands of unknown flow- 
ers, red and gold and blue and purple, rioted 
among the mulga bush in an abrupt carnival of 
color that ended as swiftly as it had begun, and 
the summer took the desert. A summer mthout 
flowers or green things, a summer that focused 
the sun's rays as in a burning-glass, and played 
over a flat black land with dust-storms and shim- 
mering mirages of lakes that were not there. 

He sat alone in the living-room of the bungalow 
late one night, writing the letters that carried 
back to his friends, in short hard phrases packed 
with facts, a sense of that curious and unfriendly 
land. The temperature was 110°, but so dry that 
the heat was not as bad as it might be. There had 



214 THE MAKING OF 

been another terrible dust-storm. Water bad 
gone up in price again. There were of course no 
green vegetables. Eggs were twelve cents each. 
The land was so flat that there was no drainage, 
which made it unhealthful. There were four hun- 
dred cases of typhoid in the hospitals at Cool- 
gardie. He was well. The office was in splendid 
shape. The junior partner in charge of all AVest 
Australia was certainly good to him. He had had 
a raise in salary. 

He sealed the last letter and leaned back in his 
chair, pushing his hands deep into his pockets and 
looking about him at the large neat living-room 
of the bungalow. The shining hardwood floor 
reflected the curtains stirring gently at the win- 
dows. The rugs, the heaA^y comfortable furniture, 
the piano standing invitingly open, were all like 
home. Shut out the stars of the Southern Cross 
hanging over the flat black desert, silence the 
distant howl of dingos ranging the night, and he 
might be back in God^s own country. 

He rose and walked up and do^vn, his head bent, 
thinking — thinking of the office, the men there, the 
cross currents of personalities and self-interests, 
the problems of mining with poor machinery and 
doubtful water-supply. The thoughts ran on, 
over the surface of his growing loneliness ; he held 
his mind to them grimly. But the silence of the 



HEEBERT HOOVER 215 

room, disturbed only by his own footfalls, was 
like a voice reminding him of his isolation. He 
stopped beside the piano, tapped a key, then an- 
other. Still silence. The keys went down with 
a faint chug of the ivory on the velvet. He lifted 
the lid of the polished mahogany case. It was 
empty, a hollow shell holding only a tangle of 
wires and dust. 

'^Did you call, sirr' The valet stood in the 

doorway. 

^'What 's the matter with this piano, do you 

knowr' 

*'It 's the white ants, sir.'' 

*'They ate the piano T' 

*^Yes, sir. They eat everything, sir.'' 

His eye followed the man's glance along the 
lower edge of the walls. Sure enough, a faint 
trace of fine sawdust here and there. He prodded 
the baseboard with his finger. The solid-looking 
wood gave gently to the pressure. It was a mere 
shell, hollow, like the piano. The window-frames, 
the door-casings— hollow, too. 

<*Any way to get at them?" 

*'No, sir. They stay inside the wood, sir. One 
only sees the sawdust, sir." 

^^ Well, it 's a hell of a country, is n't it!" 

*^So I have heard remarked, sir." 

He put his hands into his pockets and stood 



216 THE MAKING OF 

looking at the man. Impossible to attempt a 
friendly human relationship with him yet. Lord, 
for one real American to talk to ! 

''Well, I 'm going to bed. Good night. Oh, 
I 'm leaving to-morrow for a trip. Tell the cook 
I ^11 be gone a couple of weeks, will you?'' 

''Very well, sir. Good night, sir.'' 

The groom brought the Enghsh trap to the door 
in the early morning. The camping-outfit was in 
it, the water-casks were full, the bicycle strapped 
on behind. He had been warned not to travel 
without the bicycle ; in case of an accident a man 
might die of thirst before he could reach water 
on foot. 

They drove to Kalgoorlie through a heat like a 
blast from a furnace door. The road was fairly 
well traveled. They passed dusty prospectors, 
messengers on bicycles, a long caravan of lurch- 
ing camels patiently padding through the hot thick 
dust on their way to the back country, attended 
by turbaned Mohammedans who had come with 
them from Afghanistan. But after visiting the 
Kalgoorlie mines he struck out into the bush, and 
was swallowed in the silence of the desert. 

An interminable land, baked by the fierce sun, 
its red soil matted with the black mulga bush that 
gave no shade. Intolerable heat, reflected be- 
tween burning earth and blazing sky. Hot dust 
yjrickling parching skins and throats — but one 



HEEBERT HOOVER 217 

must be sparing of the precious water. Hun- 
dreds of miles of this yet to go ; and after that, 
hundreds of miles more to be traveled, as long as 
he stayed in West Australia. Well, one must pay 
for success. 

They stopped to eat at noon, washing dry 
throats with water, lying for shelter in the shade 
of the trap. The living leaves of the mulga bush, 
twisted and black, crackled into powder in the 
hand, like dried tea-leaves. A giant lizard, five 
feet long, moved sluggishly across the road— a 
** bung-arrow," prized by prospectors because it 
killed snakes. Ant-hills built like towers, eight 
feet high, rose through the tangled scrub. They 
were made of a strange fine earth cemented to- 
gether; an earth found nowhere but in those ant- 
hills. 

''The only explanation is that the ants chew up 
the sand,'' he humorously decided, smiling 
through the wide-meshed net that strangely 
enough kept off the swarms of tiny black flies. 
''Well, let 's be getting on." 

He traveled fast. The little ponies, with relays 
at each station, could make seventy-five miles a 
day, thirty miles more than camels. But for the 
longest stretches he must use camels, because they 
could live without water and eat the mulga. High 
on the humped backs he rode, in trappings of red 
and green and gold, his swaying body racked with 



218 THE MAKING OF 

each lurching step, the sun-rays burning the handsi 
that clutched the saddle. He learned, in camp at 
noon, not to pass between the turbaned Afghan 
Pathans and the sun ; if his shadow fell upon their^ 
food religion forbade them to eat it. He learned,i 
too, not to carry bacon or ham or lard in a camel 
caravan; to touch a package containing it meant 
that the swarthy camel-men would lose their hopes 
of Paradise — and kill the man responsible. 

In that far back country, too, he rode with 
scores of unseen eyes upon him. The little black 
men of the bush followed along the way, stealthy, 
invisible, passing through the thickets in which no 
white man could go. In camp in the evenings he 
looked up, startled, from his notebook to see a 
thin black leaping figure, rising above the five- 
foot bush, vanishing again instantly, leaving on 
the eyeballs a memory of outspread hair, bright 
eyes, and a great bone nose-ring. That was a 
wild man, curious to look at him; a boomerang- 
thrower, a spearsman whose darting weapon 
could kill at eighty yards. But the wild men were 
shy, and slow to make decisions. There was no 
danger if the caravan kept moving. They fol- 
lowed it, considering an attack upon it, unable to 
make up their minds; they were harmless if on 
camped each night in a new spot. 

Thankfully he ended the agonies of camel-ridin 
and settled aching muscles again in the seat of 



HERBERT HOOVER 219 

trap. He drove back toward Coolgardie and a 
bath, crossing on the way great expanses of alkali 
—marked "lakes" upon the map— where the hard 
white surface reflected the horses and the whirl- 
ing spokes like a mirror. As he went he watched 
with dust-inflamed eyes the cool blue waves upon 
a sandy beach bordered with palms, a beach that 
moved beside them across the white-hot land, a 
mirage upon a surface of the shimmering air. 

"We stop at Niagara to-night, you said. I 
hope there '11 be water enough there to wash off 
some of this alkali dust." ^ 

"There will be," the groom promised. "It s 
a jolly good pub, Mr. Hoover. Biddy Malone 's is 
known from here to t'other side." 

In Niagara that night-or in Biddy Malone s 
burlap-walled pub; for they were one-he re- 
ioiced in the luxury of washing his face, and ate 
good Irish cooking. He was not too inquisitive 
about the sheets; it was not a country m which 
laundry could be often done. He sat on the steps 
after supper, watching the hot night fall like a 
blanket upon the interminable flat desert, and he 
thought of the cool, beautiful arches of the old 
Quad, and of the girl who had walked with him 
in the green folds of the hills where wild lihes 
bloomed. October in California. The rams 
would be coming do^ra like a ground-glass screen 
between the road to Mayfield and the colored hills ; 



220 THE MAKING OF 

the grass would be more green and the clearing 
skies more blue with every dawn that rose upon 
the Santa Clara Valley. And she was a junior 
now. In another year she would be leaving Stan- 
ford. 

He finished the journey back to Coolgardie in 
record time, and plunged again into the perplex- 
ities and anxieties that had been accumulating 
there for him. Deane Mitchell, coming out from 
California to help him with them, said that he 
looked ten years older. The question of his age 
no longer mattered to him; he had proved his 
value to the company, and he was too much 
harassed to trouble about the opinions of others. 
He found himself involved in more problems than 
those of mine-management ; his expert opinion was 
too valuable not to be bid for, and there were too 
many men with money in the gold-fields who said 
cynically that all men were for sale : ' ' It 's simply 
a matter of variable price. ' ' He refused a bribe 
of eight thousand dollars for a false report upon 
a mine, and made more enemies. But it was a 
relief and a joy to have Deane Mitchell there with 
him, and though they were both overworked, they 
were delighted with the progress they made and 
with the compliments their work received from 
London. 

Already his introduction of American methods 
was increasing the output of the mines and threat- 



HERBERT HOOVER 221 

ening trouble with the workmen. He had found 
the miners using the old double-jack, one man 
holding the drill while another struck it with the 
sledge. It was a method of working that had 
gone out of use in America fifty years before with 
the introduction of the more efficient smgle-jack. 
He sent to America for single-jacks, put them into 
the mines, and faced a rebellion of the mmers. 
They refused to use the new tools ; they flung them 
into the machinery of the stamp-mills and they 
were found in the tunnels doggedly working in the 
old way. The managers reported increasing dis- 
content. 

"Fire 'em if they won't follow orders atter 
you 've explained and given them a chance. We 
can get men that will." The single-jack was the 
efficient tool, used by American miners; the Aus- 
tralians could learn to use it or get out of his 
mines. Engineers and foremen, too, felt the new 
driving force and initiative that were reconstruct- 
ing a dozen mines from the bottom up. They 
worked tirelessly and intelligently, or they were 
replaced by men who would. He replaced every 
man on his original staff and refilled some posi- 
tions several times. He was learning to handle 
the human factor, that inexplicable and erratic 
element in all modern business that in preventing 
all organizations from becoming perfect machines 
prevents them also from becoming static and holds 



^ 



222 THE MAKING OF 

the door open to that endless change that is called 
progress. He made mistakes, corrected them 
quickly, experimented, tried new combinations; 
and under his hands grew a harmonious organiza- 
tion of men animated by a common purpose who 
worked with him and for him with all the energy 
they possessed. He saw it with satisfaction and 
pride, and when he heard that he was known in 
West Australia as a hard and ruthless man he did 
not deny the indictment. There was an echo of 
his childhood in his grim acceptance of it; life 
was hard, facts were ruthless, and if he was im- 
placable toward others he was not more sparing 
of himself. 

Bewick, Moreing recognized his ability, at first 
by letters and cables of congratulation on the 
results he was accomplishing, and later by swift 
promotion. There was a reorganization going 
on above his head; Mr. Hooper, who had been his 
superior, left West Australia; Mr. Williams, a 
partner in the firm, came on from South Africa to 
take control, and the young manager of the Cool- 
gardie office was given a junior partnership in the 
local branches of the business. All the West Aus- 
tralian offices were put under his control, and the 
position carried with it another increase in salary. 

Such rapid advancement was heady wine for a 
youth who still dared not shave his beard for fear 
of revealing his twenty-four years. His grasp of 



HERBERT HOOVER 223 

hard, practical fact kept his feet steady and his 
mind cool, but there was more assurance in his 
gestures and more authority in his voice. He 
found it less necessary to explain the swift yet 
sure-footed reasoning by which he reached his 
conclusions, and Mr. Williams found his brusk 
rapidity disconcerting. They looked at each 
other with mutual respect across a chasm of un- 
comprehension ; the Englishman with his Euro- 
pean education and traditions, and the young 
American with his instinct for brusk, immediate 
action. There was a discord between them, less of 
character or mind than of surface mannerism. 
But there was too much work before them both 
for them to allow personal idiosyncrasies to inter- 
fere with it. 

Eight offices were now under the control of the 
former manager of the Coolgardie office. He 
worked every night until two or three o'clock m 
the morning. His reputation for ruthlessness in- 
creased as he went through the organizations, 
making them over to his own pattern. But there 
were incidents in his implacable progress that 
were unknown to West Australia. In the office at 
Cue he found the records in wretched disorder, 
and with the wrath that an overworked man feels 
for a negligent incompetence that hinders him he 
sent for the accountant. 
The summons was answered by an old man who 



224 THE MAKING OF 

faced him with eyes that tried to conceal an ex- 
tremity of terror. His white head, his bent shoul- 
ders, the decent patches on the meager threads of 
an ancient alpaca coat, and the withered hands 
whose trembling he could not restrain, said that 
he was a failure, a human being defeated in the 
struggle to live and tortured by an existence pro- 
longed when his life had gone into the irrevocable 
past. The new manager, after one glance at him, 
put his hands deep into his pockets and stared at 
the desk piled with papers. There was no ques- 
tion that the man must go. The big business ma- 
chine could not keep in its mechanism this useless 
cog. Great-grandfather Eli, master of his pump- 
factory in West Branch, would not have dreamed 
of breaking the grip by which those old fingers 
desperately clung to food and shelter; Herbert 
Hoover himself could not have done it if the choice 
had been his to make, but the vast impersonal 
organization that ruled the Cue office from the 
other side of the world, must be served imperson- 
ally and efficiently. 

'*How old are you?" he asked. 

^' Seventy-two, '^ said a voice that still held 
steady. 

''Well— don't you think this work will be a little 
too hard for you after the office is reorganized?'' 
He had a sense of the vast egotism and cruelty 
of youth that seizes so relentlessly, because it 



HERBERT HOOVER 225 

must, the tasks that fall from older hands, but he 
had no choice. He must go through with it. 
^^ There is plenty of time for you to look for some- 
thing easier to do, but I need a younger man to — " 

He was stopped by the old man's sobbing. 
There was, after all, no gentle way of putting the 
fact, and before it the last remnant of pride had 
gone. The old man wept, the wrinkled face ex- 
posed like a child's, and in short strangling gasps 
he begged for mercy, not for himself, but for his 
wife in Perth. She was old, too. She had no one 
but him. She would starve. He sent her his 
whole salary. He had tried hard to keep the books 
right. Nobody wanted him, because he was old; 
he could not get another job. They had never, 
never in all their lives been forced to accept char- 
ity, even when they were hungry. The salary was 
not so very large, and he would work harder. He 
had sent it all to her; he had washed his own 
clothes and done his own cooking so that she 
might have it all. He could not tell her — 

Herbert Hoover, whose ruthlessness was known 
from Perth to the farthest reaches of the back 
country, spent an hour comforting him with gen- 
tleness and tact. His words, brief and steadying, 
quieted the old man, got him on his feet again, 
and covered the memory of that exposure of his 
agony. He went out of the office reassured and 
hopeful and Herbert Hoover, before going on with 



226 THE MAKING OF 

his work, expressed his resentment against fate 
in one angry phrase: ^^That thing upsets me hor- 
ribly.'' 

He explained the situation that night to two of 
the American boys, and together they made up a 
purse of three hundred dollars, which he gave the 
old man as a parting gift from the company. 
Then he found an easy job for him in Perth and 
bruskly sent him away to spend the rest of his 
daj^s in comfort with his wife, while a younger 
man took the job of accountant at Cue. 

The new junior partner was too busy for brood- 
ing over his own affairs ; work was a good shield 
against a growing inner loneliness. But his first 
inquiry when he reached an office was, ^'Any 
mail?'' And at night in the deserted offices or in 
the big living-room of the bungalow, where now 
part of the old crowd from Stanford was usually 
with him, he sat writing long letters, trying to 
bridge with words the thousands of miles between 
him and California. The other boys would get 
out their letters, too, and the long silences would 
be disturbed only by the faint scratching of pens 
and the lonesome-sounding howls of the wild white 
dogs of the desert. 

A year since he had seen Lou Henry. And she 
was always a popular girl. She was walking now, 
perhaps, in the cool shadows of the old Quad, 
under the sandstone arches and the red-tiled roof 



I 



HERBERT HOOVER 227 

glowing against the blue California sky. Walk- 
ing there in her corduroy skirt and brown sweater, 
with the bright-colored tie beneath the white 
collar of her blouse, her throat and cheeks sun- 
warmed, her gay, brave eyes shining. The green 
hills of California, the poppies golden in the grass, 
and Lou Henry putting one slim hand on a fence 
and vaulting it, lightly as a bird! And three 
hundred other fellows walking the same paths, 
asked to the same dances, seeing her, meeting her, 
talking to her, if they liked, a dozen times a day. 

Well, a man has to be a man, and stand the gaff. 
He has to make good for a woman, if he deserves 
to have her. 

''I 'm going out again to-morrow morning to the 
Sons of Gwalia, boys," he said. 

The Sons of Gwalia was a new, almost unknown 
mine, two hundred miles back in the bush. His 
expert eye had found in it signs that promised 
another Kalgoorlie ; the cabled report in code had 
reached London; the big men in the City were 
busy. Meantime the development of the mine 
threatened to let out the secret; already three 
rival syndicates in the field had wind that some- 
where a new discovery had been made. When he 
climbed into the shining English trap now a cas- 
ual side glance showed him a bicyclist lounging 
on the other side of the street. Eighty miles out 
in the sweltering bush country the same man 



228 THE MAKING OF 

would pass him, pedaling through the red dust, 
and at the next station another man with the same 
bicycle would be sitting in the shade of a tent and 
curiously enough would happen to follow the road 
he took. 

It was a game of hide-and-go-seek, back and 
forth across a thousand miles of burning desert, 
where mirages of rippling water and palm-trees 
mocked blistering skins and dusty throats and the 
sky was a white-hot brazen lid to a tortured earth. 
Slipping noiselessly as lizards through the shrub, 
the starveling wild men watched it, and marveled. 
On the other side of the world, in cool club-rooms 
and dim offices paneled in old oak, the other end 
of the game was being played. Eaw gold in the 
ore, minted gold in the vaults ; half -naked miners 
in Australian mines, shrewd men in London stock- 
markets — the Great Game ! Leading the gasping 
bicyclists fifty miles astray, losing them on the 
road to Mount Margaret, doubling back to the 
cables, he was part of the big machine ; no longer 
on its outer edge, but close, now, to the big men 
at the center. 

He played out his part and twenty men in Lon- 
don saw his cleverness. The Sons of Gwalia was 
purchased by Bewick, Moreing's London and 
West Australian Exploration Company for $200,- 
000.00; it was capitalized at $300,000.00, leaving 
a margin of 200,000 shares in the hands of the 



HERBERT HOOVER 229 

company. Then the secret broke; the script 
leaped upward and upward again on the market, 
doubling, trebling in price, and the company un- 
loaded. It was a clean profit of nearly $1,500,- 
000.00 for the big men, and they did not forget the 
young Australian manager who had made it for 
them. 

The Sons of Gwalia was still in their control; 
they turned it over to him to develop and manage, 
with two hundred acres of adjacent desert which 
he had wisely taken the precaution to lease for 
them. 

His office was now a tent on Mount Leonora, a 
commanding height of seventy-eight feet above 
two hundred miles of desert bush. Around the 
Sons of Gwalia a mushroom mining-camp sprang 
up overnight ; over all the trails converging there 
hung the smoky dust of travel— miners, engineers, 
gamblers, and dance-hall men with their women 
hastening to the new field. When riding down 
from his office in the mornings he saw the dusty 
carts, the tents going up, scores of new faces ; fat 
men smoking gold-banded cigars, lean sharp-eyed 
gentlemen; tired-eyed girls with red cheeks and 

lips. 

''What 's going up here? Dance-hall! You 
can't stay on my ground. Get off, and do it 
quick ! ' ' 

''No, I will not give you room for a saloon. 



'2i 



230 THE MAKING OF 

There 's two hundred acres of land around here 
where you can't stay overnight. Don't talk to 
me. I 'm busy." 

^^ Chase those fellows out of here," he said im- 
patiently to his manager. ^^ There 's going to be 
one clean mining-camp in the world. Our men 
are n't here to carouse, they 're here to get out the 
ore." 

They got out the ore; they dug out, too, some- 
thing else. Making out reports ; traveling behind 
his unicorn team, — the fastest in West Australia, 
— over a territory larger than the Pacific states, 
w^restling with poor machinery, importing camels 
from the Gobi desert to reduce freight costs ; meet- 
ing delegations of rebellious miners — he found 
time one morning to notice something new in the 
dump heap beyond the crusher. He picked it up, 
examined it. *^Clay, hm? We '11 put up a brick- 
kiln and have some cool houses in this eternal 
desert." 

He ordered fire-brick, cement, machinery for 
making ice; he put the men to work, drew the 
plans, put in a manager to superintend the job. 
Six brick houses arose, double-walled, double- 
roofed, with wide verandas ; built of red brick with 
neat white-brick trimmings, for there were two 
kinds of clay in the mine. One of the buildings 
was a club-house, fan-cooled, supplied with cold 
water, furnished with big chairs, long tables 



HERBERT HOOVER 231 

and book-shelves. ^^G. B.'^ Wilson, Deane Mit- 
chell, all the boys in the fields, drove fifty miles out 
of their way to bring in magazines and books. 
''Encourage the miners to use the place," he told 
his managers. ''It 's built for them. I want to 
get them interested in their jobs; there are all 
kinds of technical mining- journals there. Or 
they can sit around where it 's cool and play cards 
if they want to, if they don't turn it into a gam- 
bling-house. ' ' 

He was buying a fifth-interest in a new mine, 
highly recommended to him by two men in whom 
he had confidence. The ore specimens looked 
good; he did not have time to examine the mine 
himself. He was building cyanide mills for the 
company; getting in machinery for a new fifty- 
stamp mill to replace the old ten-stamp one at 
Sons of Gwalia; firing men, taking on new ones, 
fighting the sly selling of whisky on his properties. 
He bought the mine and sent a man to manage it. 
If it paid as it promised he would be able to get out 
of Australia, back to God's country, back to Cal- 
ifornia and the girl. 

But the mill-run was not as good as the sam- 
ples. The work went on, and it hardly paid ex- 
penses. Then it was showing a deficit. Running 
across Wilson down in Kalgoorlie, he asked him 
to run up and take a look at the property ; some- 
thing seemed to be wrong. 



232 THE MAKING OF 

He was sitting at his desk late one evening, fig- 
uring up running-costs in percentages, when the 
sound of wheels came through the open door and 
Wilson, travel-stained and dusty, appeared in the 
doorway. 

^^^Lo, H. C.!'' 

^ ^ Hello ! Glad to see you. You know where the 
water is. Help yourself. If you want towels yell 
for 'em." 

His figures showed that he had made a record 
in low running-costs. Sons of Gwalia was making 
a clear profit of twenty thousand dollars a month ; 
with the new mill it would run one hundred and 
twenty thousand. He looked up at the sound of 
returning steps. 

*^ Feeling better, G.B.V 

**Fine. Lord ! people at home don't know what 
a bath is! Toss me a cigar. Thanks." Wilson 
settled comfortably into a chair and struck a 
match. ^'How 's everything f" 

^'Pretty good." Hoover lighted his own cigar 
and leaned back. ^'Any news down your wayT' 

'^Been up to see our mine." 

'^Yesf" 

'^Salted." 

Hoover blew a smoke ring at the ceiling. A 
fortune, the green hills of California, and some 
other hopes dissolved into nothingness with it. 



1 



HERBERT HOOVER 233 

** Well, the sons of guns ! And I 'd have trusted 
those boys with my bank- account. Why, G. B., 
they were friends of mine ! There is n 't any 
doubt about it?'' 

Wilson laid two specimens on the desk. * * This 
one 's from the crusher up there; see the chryso- 
calla? It 's the same stuff they showed us. I Ve 
been clear through the mine, sampled it every- 
where; not another trace of chrysocalla in it. 
That second specimen 's taken from the Morning- 
glory, the other mine those chaps owned, you re- 
member. I went down there and asked if there 'd 
ever been a shipment of that ore sent out ; manager 
told me there was one consignmei^t shipped, just 
before the boys sold. He didn't know where it 
went, but you can draw your own conclusions." 

*'Well, there certainly are some scoundrels in 
the world! I guess the joke 's on us." 

A little desultory talk. Figures. Operating- 
costs. News of the field, of the stock-market at 
Perth. Cigar smoke floating in motionless layers 
in the breathless air ; the hot dark desert brooding 
outside the windows. A wild man from the bush 
slipping past the doorway like a shadow, thin 
limbs no larger than a monkey's, bright peering 
eyes, bushy hair, a bleached white bone through 
the nostrils, all seen for a second and vanishing. 

*^The beggars are getting tamer." 



234 THE MAKING OF 

^*Yes. Quite a lot hanging- around. They try 
out their boomerangs on the ducks at the tailings 
dump. ' ' 

'^Got another match!'' 

Silence again, and the smoke curling. Good to 
have a moment's rest. Rotten feeling, that about 
the mine, and the men he had trusted. 

''Say, H. C, you know the Associated, dowTi 
at Kalgoorlie ? They 're getting out a lot of good 
ore lately. Working full blast. I 'm wonder- 
ing—" 

The legs of his chair came down abruptly. He 
leaned forward, alert. 

** Associated? That lies between two blocks 
of our Aroya. Which way are they working ? ' ' 

''Well, if their lode runs north or south — " 

Back in the game again, the Great Game ! The 
matching of wits ; quick mind against quick mind ; 
watching the other fellow; seizing ungniarded 
openings, down there in the farthest outlands, and 
moving with his movements the kings of the City 
and the thousands of pawns behind them. "If 
they Ve struck something big, it means that 
Aroya '11 boom when the secret 's out. Get after 
it, G. B. Find out what they 're doing." 

Six weeks later, swinging around the desert 
circuit again on his job as consulting' engineer, he 
came into the Coolgardie office late at night, tired, 
looking for mail. The box-like room, hot as an 



HERBERT HOOVER 235 

oven, was deserted. He sat reading for the 
second time the letter he had wanted, when Wil- 
son came in, bringing an air of controlled excite- 
ment. 

' ' They told me I 'd catch you here. Well, H. C, 
I Ve got it ! Been working as shift-boss for the 
Associated. They 're following a three-foot lode 
straight into Aroya. I 've been surveying all 
night; they 're within twenty-five feet of the 
Aroya line.'' 

^' Where 's the code-book I" 

He worked out the cablegram in pencil, Wilson 
slipping a fresh sheet of carbon between two 
blanks and typing it out as he read it aloud. A 
cablegram telling the London office to get control 
of Aroya, quickly. They caught the telegraph 
man just before he closed the office, and it was 
on its way to the daylighted side of the world. 
Four hours later the big men in the City 
would be quietly gathering up Aroya on the 
London stock-market, preparing for another big 
flotation. 

' ^ That 's a good piece of work, ' ' he said. 

His reward came quickly. Mr. Hoover was 
offered a choice; he could take over the entire 
management of their West Australian interests, or 
he could go to China. 

He did not wait for a letter from California. 
He cabled. White women could live comfortably 



236 THE MAKING OF 

in China, in Peking or Tien-Tsin. There were 
modern hotels there, shade, water. There were 
shops and theaters and companions to fill in the 
times, that could not be avoided, when a mining 
engineer must go alone into hardships and danger. 
He had made good; for a long time he had been 
able to support a wife, now he could take her to 
a country in which she could live. Still, it was a 
great deal to ask her to face — the life of an engi- 
neer's wife half a world awa}^ from her home and 
friends. Ah, but she had never lacked grit, that 
girl! 

The cablegram would reach her at ten o'clock 
in Monterey. She would be playing tennis, per- 
haps, short white skirt and white middy and flung- 
back head vivid against green palms and pepper • 
trees. Two years since he had seen her. Noth- 
ing but her gay, fine letters between them for 
twenty-four long months. If she answered the 
cable at once he could know that night. Perhaps 
she would want to think about it. Cable offices 
at home closed at six o 'clock. If she waited until 
after six — 

But the cablegram came that night. 

The company's business was all in order. Ten 
days would gather up the last new detail into 
compact shape, ready for the new manager. His 
owTi personal affairs — but he had been paying no 



HERBERT HOOVER 237 

attention to them; he had been too busy. Hotel 
bills, livery bills, laundry, small sums of money 
he had lent, were scattered over half the continent. 
Brokers in Perth had buying and selling orders of 
his; small blocks of stock in this mine and that. 
A dozen banks held the remnants of little checking- 
accounts ; he did not know exactly how much. He 
could estimate approximately his balance in the 
San Francisco bank ; Lester Hinsdale still held a 
power of attorney there and seven boys and girls 
were now paying their way through college from 
that account, while others drew against it for 
loans now and then. A hopeless muddle, his own 
affairs. 

Never mind. There was no time to give them. 
Wilson could attend to that. Memorandum books, 
check stubs, I U's, brokers' statements— all of 
them in one pile. ' ' Straighten it out for me, will 
you I Good-by. See you in China.'' 

He was off for London, on the journey that 
would circle the world again. The world was 
after all a small place— Stanford on a larger scale. 
The big business offices were only the Oregon 
Land Company's office gigantically magnified; the 
same conflicting desires, the same visions of build- 
ing, the same greeds, the same principles. A 
man's power is in proportion to the width of his 
horizon ; a small man is a small man because his 
vision ends within the little circle of his fancied 



238 THE MAKING OF 

limitations. He knew, now, that nothing smaller 
than the wide curve of the earth restrained him. 
Ceylon again; Port Said; the shores of Italy; 
Marseilles; London. He walked with confidence 
into the offices that had awed him once. He had 
made good; he was going on to a bigger job where 
again he would make good. ^' Chief Engineer 
for the Director-General of Mines for the Chinese 
Empire!'^ A title to make a young Ameri- 
can mining engineer grin. To make him thought- 
ful, too. There was something bigger in it than 
merely mining engineering. There was the 
awakening, the stirring of the yellow races, 
prodded from slumber by the goad of West- 
ern commercial greed, the arousing of long- 
quiescent, unmeasured forces in the East. The 
stripling Emperor of China had been taught 
Western ideas by missionaries. Kwang-Hsu was 
a Chinese radical, determined to overthrow the old 
civilization of China, to replace it with a new, 
modern state. The old empress, his aunt, op- 
posed him. But she had given charge of the im- 
perial mines to a favorite, Chang Yen Mao, and 
Chang Yen Mao desired to import Western min- 
ing methods. He had applied for help to Bewick, 
Moreing, the great London firm that developed 
and managed mines ; they had agreed to lend him ' 
two young mining engineers from their staff.- 



HERBERT HOOVER 239 

Hoover was to be in charge, representing Bewick, 
Moreing, and working for Chang Yen Mao. 

Two weeks in London, learning these things and 
others. Then away once more on the long flight 
home, to California and the girl. Three thousand 
miles of water, three thousand miles of land— the 
green spring hills of California again 1 Then the 
palms, the sleeping old Spanish Missions, the 
white curving sandy beaches about the blue Bay 
of Monterey— and Lou Henry. 

Lou Henry a little breathless, wide-eyed, but 
very glad, presenting him proudly to the family 
in the serene old house among the aged pepper- 
trees and roses of old Monterey. Lou Henry's 
father and mother, the dignified banker and his 
smiling, tranquil wife, confronting with what com- 
posure they might this youth of twenty-four who 
had stopped for a moment on his race around the 
world to snatch away their daughter. Quiet talks 
with the father on the shaded porch ; moments of 
swift, warm emotion with the mother. They liked 
him. But his eyes were for Lou Henry. 

Ten days among the dreamy memories of days 
when California was young. White moonlight on 
the old tiled roofs ; sun-steeped afternoons on the 
quiet streets. A sense of rest, of peace, of the 
slow, unceasing flow of time into eternity. Only 
ten days. The job in China waiting. Passage en- 



240 THE MAKING OF 

gaged on the boat. Cables to Wilson for money. 
Lou Henry, why need it take so long? 

Ten days is, after all, a very short time in which 
to take a girl away from all that she has ever 
known. The old friends must be there to see her 
go; there must be roses and music and the loved 
old Mission priest performing a modified service 
for this daughter of old Monterey who was not 
of the faith and whose lover was a Quaker. Ten, 
days ? Impetuous young man, in the golden years 
that Monterey remembers, the wedding-feast alone 
made merry^the hours of thirty days and nights! 

But he had been working through three years to- 
ward this day, the day of sunshine and laughter 
and tears. Soft stately music. The old priest in 
his robes. Lou Henry in white, with fresh-gath- 
ered orange-blossoms in her hair. The ring on 
her finger at last, and a look in her eyes like his 
mother's. Before God, as his father was good to 
his mother, he will be good and brave and strong 
for her sake. 

Three years of dreaming, and now the reality 
itself is like a dream. Incredible that he had won 
so much! Laughter, pretty speeches, colored 
gowns, sunshine on the lawn, whirling about him, 
dream-like. Pepper-trees and old Mission walls, 
blue waters bej^ond the curving beach, palms and 
roses and green hills. Ah, the sharp, hard reality 
again — a train ! The familiar clang of engine 



1 



HERBERT HOOVER 241 

bells, the quiver running through the cars and 
settling into the steady vibration of speed. Mont- 
erey fallen behind him like the dream it was.^ San 
Francisco ahead and the big gray ship waiting at 
the pier to take him out to his job in China. To 
take them out to his job in China ; for here is Lou 
Henry beside him, going out with him to stand 
beside him now, forever. 



CHAPTER V 

AFTERNOON on Race-course Road in the 
foreign quarter of Tien-Tsin. A wide elm- 
bordered road edged with high brick walls. Rick- 
shaws drawn by trotting yellow men, carrying 
English ladies to tea at the Astor House. Sleek 
horses cantering past, ridden by jockeys in red 
and green jackets on their way to exercise their 
mounts at the race-course. A serene, suave at- 
mosphere faintly flavored with the spice of the 
Orient. A little island of foreigners set haughtily 
in the vast swarming yellow land of China. 

Observing these things, Herbert Hoover, aged 
twenty-four, mining engineer for the Chinese Em- 
pire, rode in state to his first ceremonious inter- 
view with Chang Yen Mao, Director General of 
Mines and Railways. He sat uncomfortably, 
arms clasping blue serge knees, on the silken 
carpeted floor of a Peking cart drawn by a 
mule. Above his head stretched a ceiling of 
heavy silk embroidered in colors and gold; win- 
dows of sheerest silk gauze concealed his august 
person from the vulgar gaze, yet were transpar- 
ent to his eyes. The mule trotted with a Jingle of 

242 



HERBERT HOOVER 243 

silver harness; a fringed silken canopy shaded 
him; before him ran an escort of ten Chinese 
soldiers. 

They turned a comer, and before them stately 
towers of red brick rising above the high wall of 
a compound proclaimed a mandarin's residence. 
At a decorous distance from the curved great 
gates the Peking cart stopped, waiting while 
due notice of their arrival was carried to Chang 
Yen Mao. 

'' Strange ideas of business these people have, 
G. B.," he said to Wilson, who sat beside him on a 
dragon-embroidered cushion. ''Comes of being 
an old, old race : they remember so many centuries. 
Ever notice that it 's old people who care about 
customs and forms? We '11 have a lot of preju- 
dice to overcome here. And delays! We 
mustn't say a word about business this visit or 
we '11 break the Chinese what-do-you-call-it." 

''Chinese kuei chu/' said Wilson, struggling 
with the quicksilver vowels. "Wliat does that 
mean, exactly, in English I" 

''Kuei-chu/' repeated the interpreter. "It 
means— how do you say ?— ceremony. In English 
it is these words exactly— ' square and com- 
passes.' " 

"Square and compasses! What 's that got to 
do with ceremony!" 

"It is very, very old Chinese word," said the 



244 THE MAKING OF 

interpreter and shrugged the question from his 
sloping shoulders. 

^^ Masonry, by all that 's ancient! It must be 
that, H. C. How else would you account for it? 
Masonry came down from the North with the 
builders of King Solomon's temple; why 
should n 't it have come out of China ? If I find a 
high-up Chinese mandarin who 's my Masonic 
brother, then will you admit we ought to learn 
Chinese to do business heref 

^^I 'm not taking any bets on that,'' Hoover re- 
plied in the same jocular tone. *^I don't care how 
long they 've been Masons, if they '11 let us de- 
velop their mines. No, we can get along well 
enough with interpreters. We 're going to be too 
busy to take on a language like Chinese." 

The messenger returned ; Chang Yen Mao would 
await their coming at his gates. 

They dismounted and approached the pagoda- 
roofed gateway on foot, between the drawn-up 
lines of their soldier escort. Before the tall 
screen carved with dragons that shut off the view 
of the compound beyond, Chang Yen Mao stood 
grave and stately, his silken-robed servants bow- 
ing on either hand. The interpreter uttered the 
proper words of greeting; he replied with solemn 
courtesy. 

A tall, impassive Chinese was Chang Yen Mao. 
The quick American eye took in his six feet of live 



HERBERT HOOVER 245 

muscle, his strong shoulders, his straight carriage. 
For all his fifty years and his suavely folded 
hands, not a man to be easily handled in a scrap. 
Nor in business, either; not with that lidless eye 
that saw everything and nothing at once. He had 
known many things in his time, that man. A 
coolie lad born in a starving village on the banks 
of the Pei-ho River, he had in his childhood 
watched the great silken-canopied boat of the 
empress go slowly over the yellow water, pro- 
pelled by long sweeps of red-lacquered oars; he 
had gazed at the two eyes of lacquer and pearl on 
its prow, the teak-wood cabins carved and inlaid 
and shuttered with painted gauzes, the gold- 
embroidered robes and jeweled fingers and proud 
two-eyed peacock feathers of the courtiers who 
sat on the deck drinking tea from tiny priceless 
cups, while servants stirred the scented air with 
slow'movements of great fans and musicians wove 
a silver thread of harmony through their medita- 
tions. Ten years passed before the boat of the 
empress passed that way again, but when it came 
the coolie lad was ready. On the low muddy bank 
in the sunshine he stood, a slim youth erect and 
steel-muscled, two huge two-edged swords making 
rings of silver fire around him. All that skilled 
Chinese swordsmen and famous jugglers had ever 
done he did, and more, sending a voiceless prayer 
across the yellow water to the power behind the 



246 THE MAKING OF 

silken gauzes. His prayer was answered; the 
empress summoned him. He bowed low to the 
polished deck before her cabin, in the midst of the 
court, and her voice came from it, making him 
Master of the Imperial Stables. 

He taught the young emperor, Tung-chih, how 
to ride. Who shall say how the accident occurred 
that would have left empty the Dragon Throne had 
not Chang Yen Mao been quick and ready to save 
the Heaven-Born! In the great palaces of the 
Forbidden City the wise courtiers said nothing; 
nothing could be proved. Chang Yen Mao had 
saved the boy. And he had been made Chamber- 
lain of the Court. 

He was Chamberlain of the Court when the 
young emperor died, and China had no ruler. It 
was night, and the great gates of Peking were 
closed. Without the walls, at his palace in the 
country, was the little three-year-old Kwang-Hsu, 
nephew of the empress. Eight hours before the 
gates could be opened. Much may be done in 
eight hours, in the whispering walls of an imperial 
palace where an emperor lies dead and only a 
woman stands alone against fierce ambitions. 
The empress sent in haste for Chang Yen Mao. 
He listened, and bowed, and withdrew. In the 
clothing of a servant he slipped through the 
Peking streets, over the wall, then across the 
fields to the country place of Kwang-Hsu, and 



HERBERT HOOVER 247 

raced back through the night with the boy in his 
arms. A trusted servant watching from the top 
of the towering wall let down a rope, and some- 
how, in the darkness, with the heir to all China 
bound on his back, Chang Yen Mao did what had 
never been done — he scaled the city wall of Peking. 
Dawn found the court decorous and calm, the 
little Kwang-Hsu proclaimed the emperor, the Di- 
vinely Appointed, the Son of Heaven, and the 
empress dowager began her undisputed reign. 

These were the tales rumor whispered of the 
devious years through which the coolie lad of the 
river village had come to hold in his hands all the 
wealth of China's mines. Decidedly, he was a 
man of power and purpose, not to be lightly re- 
garded by a young American mining engineer as 
he stood calm in his palace gates replying in slid- 
ing, elusive Chinese to the interpreter's greeting. 

In honor of his distinguished guests he wore 
his garments of state; the gown of peacock-blue 
brocaded silk edged with wave-ripples of rose and 
emerald and purple that fell over white-soled black 
velvet boots so tall as almost to hide the silken 
trousers bound with gold-embroidered ribbon. 
From his neck hung the long chain of a hundred 
and one flawless amber beads. His hands were 
folded in the wide sleeves of a coat of heavy brown 
silk edged with deep bands of sable, and the high 
crown-shaped winter hat was of sable also, topped 



248 THE MAKING OF 

with emerald silk and a red fringe. Above it 
glowed the large ruby-colored crystal ball of a 
Number One Mandarin holding the green jade 
tube from which depended the two-eyed peacock 
feather. 

The new engineer said hastily to the inter- 
preter: ''Tell him that if we don't do the 
proper thing it 's because we don't know the 
Chinese customs, not because we are discourte- 
ous." 

Chang Yen Mao smiled gravely. Then with 
dignity he unfolded his hands and held out the 
right one, making ceremonious the strange Amer- 
ican hand-shake. So far as he could he would 
meet half-way the new thing he had brought to 
China — the ugly, barbarous but efficient West. 
On his thumb gleamed the large ring of three- 
colored jade ; symbol that he belonged to that high 
and honorable rank privileged to draw against 
the right thumb the twanging bowstring of an 
archer. 

"May the honorable guest deign to enter my 
humble abode," he said, stepping aside that the 
Americans might pass around the tall carved 
screen. This was not to be done at once ; so much 
Herbert Hoover had been forewarned. 

''No, I can't do anything like that. I will go 
after you," he protested. And all this had to be 
gone through not only to-day, but to-morrow and 



I 



HERBERT HOOVER 249 

the next day, before he could even begin to talk 
about mining! 

He allowed himself at last to be pushed gently 
around the edge of the screen, only to confront a 
second, more richly ornamented than the first, and 
again to protest, to urge that he must follow his 
host, to yield gracefully — and to face a third 
screen ! And he saw that the obstacles to mining 
in China were harder to conquer than the Aus- 
tralian desert, being so yielding, so suave, so in- 
tricately baffling. A maze, in which one could 
exhaust all his energy in furiously pressing for- 
ward, only to find himself where he had started. 

He crossed the wide, cool compound, shaded by 
aged trees whose every bough was formed to fit 
a pattern, ornamented by lotus pools where huge 
goldfish trailed rainbow-colored gauzes through 
the clear water. Square bowls of old blue pottery 
held cunningly chosen pebbles and lily bulbs. 
Strange dog-like creatures of bronze sat beneath 
the trees. Through the open doors of the many 
low Chinese houses that closed in the compound 
he caught glimpses of rich embroideries, filagreed 
teak-wood screens inset with mother-of-pearl, and 
curiously wrought bronze bowls from which the 
delicate smoke of incense curled. Many Chinese 
servants moved silently among them on padded 
slippers. But the state palace of Chang Yen Mao 
was all European, from its tall red-brick walls to 



250 THE MAKING OF 

the white marble floor and fireplaces of the huge 
reception room that opened on a complete Euro- 
pean theater with velvet-curtained stage, Brus- 
sels-carpeted aisles, and stiff rows of varnished 
wooden seats. The drawing-room, too, boasted 
lace curtains, shining hardwood floor, and papered 
walls against which the imported, plush-uphol- 
stered chairs were drawn up in Chinese fashion, 
the largest in the center of the eastern wall and 
the others ranged in order of size entirely around 
the room. 

Another interval of polite protestation. The 
guest must be offered the seat of honor ; he must 
refuse to take it, indicating his proper place to 
be the smaller chair beside it; Chang must avow 
that he himself should sit in the lowest place. The 
polite controversy must end at last in a gentle 
scuffle, the American allowing himself to be 
pushed into the large chair. Then, after a decor- 
ous pause, conversation. Courteous nothings, cer- 
emoniously uttered; above all things, no mention 
of business. 

Servants noiselessly placed before them high 
teak-wood tables and brought lacquered trays set 
with rice-patterned tea-bowls and dishes of lichi 
nuts, preserved ginger, and poppy-seed cakes, 
From large copper kettles the freshly boiling 
water was poured on the fragrant tea-leaves, and 
over each bowl was placed the fragile china lid 



HERBEET HOOVEE 251 

intended to preserve the aroma — a bit of China 
which uncouth Danish traders of the sixteenth 
century, ignorant of the niceties of life, had been 
unable to explain at home, so that Danish house- 
wives had put it beneath the cup and created the 
ugly European saucer. 

^^Will the guest deign to taste my unworthy 
tear' Chang urged. But the guest would not; 
he could not, for when he tasted the tea he would 
end the interview. He must courteously refuse, 
and be urged again, and again refuse, while across 
the teak-wood tables the two men measured each 
other, storing away impressions to be meditated 
upon before the interview at which they would 
discuss business. 

'^Why make haste f said the calm face of 
Chang, immobile behind the drooping gray mus- 
taches and round pencil of beard that touched his 
lower lip with an accent of dignity. '*The river 
of the centuries passes slowly. There have been 
ten thousand times ten thousand years, and there 
will be ten thousand times that number. One man 
is a snowflake on an ocean of time ; his affairs are 
of no moment. We live ; we shall die ; others will 
come after us, living and dying. Let us be calm. ' ' 

^^No wonder twenty centuries haven't devel- 
oped China's mines!" the American thought. 
Clever man, though, this Chinese. The empress 
had given him the management of the empire's 



252 THE MAKING OF 

mining, a mark of personal favor which meant 
that the mines were virtually Chang's as long as 
he stood in the good graces of the court. Chang 
had been wise enough to know that energetic 
Western management would multiply his income 
many times, and he had been shrewd enough to 
ask Bewick, Moreing Company to lend him the 
services of a good engineer. A delicate situation 
for a young man of twenty-four, standing as a link 
between the stock-markets of London and the 
mazes of Oriental intrigue that surrounded the 
Dragon Throne. Imperialistic trade of England, 
wanting a foothold in China ; wily Oriental, grasp- 
ing at the advantages of the crude Western indus- 
trialism, yet vainly hoping to hold in the same 
hand the old traditions, the arts and culture and 
beauty of China's autocracy. 

They drank the pale, subtly flavored tea. The 
interview was ended, with bows, with flowery, 
evasive, ceremonious speeches. He passed 
through the compound, past the lotus pools, the 
swarming Chinese houses, the silently watching 
garden gods. The Peking cart and the escort of 
soldiers were waiting. 

^^Well, we go through this again, and then the 
next time we '11 be able to get down to cases. At 
least we can arrange a trip to look at the mines. 
Ask that coachman out there on the shafts if he 
can't hurry up that mule, will you?" 



HERBERT HOOVER 253 

Back through the crowded streets of shops, the 
narrow ways crowded with palanquins, rickshaws, 
trotting Chinese coolies, flat paper parasols ; past 
the gold-beaters' shops and the basket-makers' 
and the windows glowing with jewels, embroider- 
ies, ancient carved ivories, and many colored silks. 
Back to the Astor House -and the girl who was no 
longer a dream in faraway California. Mrs. Her- 
bert C. Hoover, now, with him on their honeymoon 
in China. 

Moments of moonlight on the balconies of the 
Astor House, snatched hours of walking together 
through the lantern-lighted streets of old Tien- 
Tsin, in the pungent incense-heavy air, listening 
to strange wailing, crashing music among the lilies 
of the Chinese New Year, while the great Dragon- 
Parade went by. Moments and emotions never to 
be forgotten, building a new foundation for ambi- 
tions and for work. 

Lou Henry had her own industrious plans. Let 
it not be forgotten, sir, that she herself was a geol- 
ogist of no small ability ! She was fascinated by 
the problems of mining in China; eager to be at 
them herself; poring over books and reports with 
him or while he was away. She intended to trace 
and map the geology of a most interesting part of 
China. And she would fain set out with her hus- 
band and Wilson on their first trip to see the mines. 
But alas for the scientific impulse! Travel in 



254 THE MAKING OF 

China would be too embarrassing for the engi- 
neer's bride, for she could never be free from the 
curious gaze of the people ; night and day it would 
follow her, for the houses had paper windows and 
the people would punch holes through these win- 
dows and watch the lying down of the strangers 
and the rising of the same. So Lou Henry, torn 
by the conflict of being a geologist and a woman, 
remained at Tien-Tsin. M 

The party rode in imperial state, a huge caravan 
of servants, soldiers, palanquins, and baggage- 
mules, following the deep-worn square-angled 
roads cut by centuries of travel far below the sur- 
face of the land, or emerging on embankments 
raised above the flooded millet-fields, passing hud- 
dled villages of huts with straw-thatched roofs, 
seeing a country swarming with yellow millions 
living in squalor, contented, disease-ridden, pa- 
tient, clinging without complaint to the crumbling 
edge of starvation. They journeyed northward, 
making for the mines at Niu Shin Shan, and word 
of the caravan's coming raced before them like 
wind over a wheat-field. 

Outside the village they halted while a detach- 
ment of soldiers went forward to announce their 
arrival. Then they approached with military 
ceremony, two lines of Chinese cavalry before 
them, two more behind, with their sen^ants and 
baggage train bringing up the rear. But a quar- 



HEEBERT HOOVER 255 

ter of a mile from the village etiquette flung aside 
all decorum. The soldiers stood up in their stir- 
rups, lashed 'their mounts, and dashed forward 
with yells, and they raced like conquering foes 
into the village, cheering, shouting, and clashing 
swords together while firecrackers exploded from 
every roof and a three-cannon salute roared above 
the turmoil. Then the mine officials came forth 
in state robes, and there were ceremonies: tea- 
drinking; an interminable Chinese banquet that 
wore away the night with music that tortured the 
ear-drums; endless courses of fish, sweetmeats, 
spiced meat-balls, chocolate pastes, and delicate 
small bowls of rice wine. 

In the morning they were led to see the mines. 
At last! 

Australia had made him declare that he wanted 
to cry; China struck him dumb. He had been 
prepared for primitive methods ; here he saw the 
prehistoric. The mine officials, in their robes of 
heavy silk, blue and green, bounded with narrow 
brocaded ribbon, naively displayed to him the 
shallow cuts in the hills, the mills of hand-hewn 
stone, the toiling coolies, the system. 

The mines were divided into measured portions, 
each leased to a group of ten or twelve coohes 
.who worked it cooperatively, independent of any 
control by the company. Some of them chipped 
away the rock-face with iron moils ; while others 



256 THE MAKINO OF 

sat on the hillsides breaking the ore with ham- 
mers, cracking it carefully into pebbles no larger 
than hazelnuts. By many little fires other coolies 
squatted, stirring and drying these pebbles on 
squares of sheet iron laid over the flames, and 
up and down the paths trotted lines of men 
carrying the dried and cooled ore to the mill in 
double baskets tied to poles over the shoulders. 

The mill was a flat rock four feet across, with a 
pole through the center. A round stone roller 
with a long wooden handle was lashed to this cen- 
ter-piece, and around and around in a circle the 
yellow men trotted, wearing the ore down to pow- 
der that was swept up with little hand-made 
brooms. 

^'And what," he said, standing at gaze with his 
hands in his pockets, ^^do they call that thing?" 

It was a slanting table on which the powdered 
ore was dumped. Water from the river, brought 
in willow baskets, washed down its length, and be- 
side it stood the coolies in their flat hats, raking the 
ore upward with wooden rakes. The interpreter 
translated the question to a brocaded official whose 
impassive face was faintly rippled by a strange 
expression as he stared at the Chief Engineer of 
Mines. 

''It 's a hand-buddle," he said, in some excite- 
ment. ''They used it in Saxony in — sometime 
early in the fifteenth century. Well, I never 



HERBERT HOOVER 257 

thought I 'd see one ! And they 're panning the 
dust in flat willow baskets, down there at the 
river. What do they do next I' ' 

' What they did next was to extract the iron sand ^ 
from the gold dust with patient manipulation of 
natural lodestones found in the mountains. ^ ^ 

' ' There is.n 't one American miner in the Sierras ^ 
who couldn't teach these people five centuries of 
mining ! " 

At night each group of coolies brought their ^ 
gold to the company's office, where it was weighed 
and bought. The scales, of course, were arranged 
to give false weight; that, it was explained, was 
the '' squeeze" of the local manager, who super- 
vised the smelting, done in clay crucibles in a brick 
furnace. The solid gold bars, weighing five taels, 
went through many hands, leaving toll by the way, 
until it reached Chang's banks. 

The whole system needed thorough reorganiza- 
tion from top to bottom. Leasing must be abol- 
ished; the coolies must work on wages for the 
company. Drills must be brought in, and dyna- 
mite; modern crushers and mills and smelting- 
plants. Graft must be wiped out ; a rigid account- 
ing system established; American methods, Amer- 
ican enterprise and energy and standards of busi- 
ness honesty! Yes, and opposed to them the si- 
lent, unresisting, unconquerable inertia of China : 
four hundred millions of patient yellow men plod- 



258 THE MAKING OF 

ding in the honored ways of their fathers and 
looking with inscrutable eyes on the Western civ- 
ilizations rising and falling and leaving old China 
unchanged. 

He rode across the length and breadth of north- 
ern China. He examined mines, figured esti- 
mates, drew up plans of reorganization. At Chin 
Chang Kiu Liang, outside the Great Wall in Mon- 
golia, he found one mine sunk to a six-hundred- 
foot level, managed by a Chinese who had been a 
miner in California and had come back to attach 
steam-engines to the old stone mills. Wilson 
was put in charge there ; it was the most promising 
of the mines. Agnew, the New Zealander, his 
underground boss from the Sons of Gwalia, had 
been brought on, and Jack Means of Stanford, and 
Newberry, the Australian. 

^^I 'm going to plant another American colony 
here, as I did in Westralia,'' he said. He estab- 
lished the American Engineers ' Club on Race- 
course Road in Tien-Tsin; assayers' offices and 
laboratories on the first floor, living- and sleeping- 
quarters upstairs. Lou Henry took a blue-brick 
house on the same street, furnished it, gathered 
together a household of Chinese servants. They 
were settling down to the long fight. 

It was not only a matter of reorganizing mines ; 
the intricate labyrinths of China, twisting and 
doubling, were one maze of lines leading from 



HERBERT HOOVER 259 

hovel to court, from sweating coolie to the empress 
dowager and from her through all the diplomacy 
of Europe. He must have railroads to get out his 
coal and iron; Russia wished to build a railway 
from Baikal to Urga to Kalgan, giving her an out- 
let to the Pacific at Peking; England and France 
blocked that move of Europe 's terror, the North- 
ern Bear. But there are no frontiers in interna- 
tional finance. Why not a combination of English 
and French and Russian capital to build a common 
railway over the old caravan route from China, 
to connect with the Trans-Siberian railroad? 

And there was the treacherous Yellow River, 
*^ China's Sorrow,'' creeping like a serpent over 
the fertile flat fields, lazily placid for the moment. 
But at short intervals through all the centuries it 
had aroused itself, changed its course, swept away 
towns and villages and swallowed the rice-fields, 
leaving famine where harvest had been. He 
would conquer it ; confine it with dikes, dredge out 
its channels, and make it a watercourse for loaded 
ships. This could be done; his figures showed 
that it could be done. 

Chang Yen Mao, sedate in his silken robes, a 
carved fan in his fingers, listened without com- 
ment to these plans. Conquer ^^ China's Sor- 
row"? This young, quick- speaking American 
with estimates and contracts in his blue-serge 
pockets was attacking the oldest tradition of the 



260 THE MAKING OF 

empire. Since time began the Yellow Eiver had 
been; for centuries past the emperor who wished 
to punish a powerful mandarin had made the un- 
favored one ^^The Keeper of the Yellow River." 
A little time — a year, two years, perhaps — and 
the great serpent of water would rise again; its 
official keeper would then be beheaded. Chang's 
own friend and ally, Li Hung Chang, was now The 
Keeper of the Yellow River. Three years before, 
the empress dowager had sent him on a painted 
scroll of silk that fatal appointment, and ever 
since, because the gods were kind, the river had 
slept between its banks. Who knew? Perhaps 
this young American — 

Chang Yen Mao slowly unfolded the fan and 
swayed it to and fro with the slim yellow hand on 
which shone the thumb-ring of three-colored jade. 
He liked the young American; he trusted him. 
Herbert Hoover was received now in the Chinese 
rooms of the compound where Chang lived among 
his ivories and dragon-carved screens and old pic- 
tures painted on silk. The young American was 
wise, and he was honest. But these plans would 
need much consideration. The dowager empress 
feared the grasping hands of Europe. Heads had 
fallen for less than the rumor of such enterprises. 
A narrow and careful path must be trod in the 
labyrinths of the Forbidden City. Patience. 
Have patience. A long and serene life is not lived 



HERBERT HOOVER 261 

in haste, young American ! There must be time 
for contemplation. 

Meanwhile, where is the flood of gold that 
should be pouring forth at the magic touch of the 
Westerner? 

^^ Mining in China is like trying to fight a 
feather-bed!'' he said in the sitting-room of the 
Engineers' Club. But he had little time to spend 
there. His task was the rebuilding of an empire 
that had resisted change for twenty centuries. At 
the top was feudal ownership; at the bottom, the 
primitive communism in which human society be- 
gan. Somehow he must insert between them the 
individualism of pioneer America, building toward 
the industrial capitalism that would absorb them 
both. 

The whole system of China's mining laws must 
be altered. For the work he organized the Mining 
Bureau of Chihli Province. A staff was put at 
work collecting, translating, and summarizing all 
Chinese mining literature and all that had been 
written in other languages concerning Chinese 
mines. The mines themselves must be examined, 
tested, and reported upon. Corps of geologists, 
surveyors, and assayers were put at work on that. 
The mines already working must be reorganized, 
equipped with modern machinery, and forced to 
increase production immediately. He made esti- 
mates, cabled to America for bids on mining ma- 



262 THE MAKING OF 

chiner}^ figured transportation costs, mapped his 
hoped-for railroads. And kept a watchful eye on 
the network of political and economic wires cover- 
ing the world. 

Tien-Tsin and Peking were filled with white 
men — English, French, German, and American; 
army officers, bankers, diplomats — all bent upon 
their own designs of seizing part of the great rich, 
unresisting yellow land. In the Forbidden City 
sat Kwang-Hsu, the imprisoned young emperor 
who had tried too rashly to rebuild his country 
upon Western lines, to make it a modern nation 
of the Chinese, created by the Chinese for the 
Chinese, and on the Dragon Throne again was the 
empress dowager, angered and fearful. The For- 
bidden City and the foreign quarters were two 
enemy forces confronting each other with the 
China of the coolies between them. In the one 
patriotism and pride stood at bay; in the other 
imperialistic ambitions and greed pressed for- 
ward. Germany had Kiao-chau ; Russia had Port 
Arthur and Ta-lien-wan ; France clutched Kwang- 
Chau Wan, and England had seized Wei-hai-wei 
and four hundred miles of territory around Hong- 
kong. The custom-houses of the empire were in 
pawn to these voracious Western nations; they 
collected tolls at China's ports, and Allied war- 
ships lay at anchor in her harbors. 

Echoes from the courts and countins'-houses of 



HERBERT HOOVER 263 

all Europe were heard faintly among the click of 
teaspoons and the rattle of sabers in the drawing- 
rooms of the blue-brick house on Race-course 
Road, where Lou Henry poured tea on summer 
afternoons. On the verandas of the Astor House, 
while the orchestra played and dancers whirled in 
a rustle of silks and whispering feet, there were 
snatches of talk, non-committal, oblique; signifi- 
cant glances above the sputter of a match at a 
cigar-end. 

Herbert Hoover wore evening clothes easily 
now. His horses raced with the others at the 
spring and autumn events at the race-course. 
These were details, troublesome to a man whose 
whole desire was to develop China's mines, but 
they were too important to be neglected. Lou 
Henry helped him there ; Lou Henry who was still 
cherishing her project of mapping the geology of 
this region as soon as it should be possible. He 
was missing nothing. He did not miss, either, 
the slow stirring of China's vast peoples; a rest- 
lessness like that of a disturbed beehive. Veiled 
glances, met here and there on his long trips 
through the interior; a sullenness, an antagonism 
too subtle to be met and overcome. Danger? Of 
course not ! Not after the lesson of the Japanese 
War ; not with Allied guns in the harbors. 

June of his second year in China, and little ac- 
complished yet. But all his preliminary work 



264 THE MAKING OF 

was done. He knew China's mines from Chin 
Chang' Kou Liang to Chao Yang. He knew as 
much as a white man could know of affairs in the 
Forbidden City. His plans were finished, ready 
to be carried out. 

He rode southward from Kalgan, and he saw 
a land suddenly alive, menacing, buzzing with the 
hum of an angry swarm. Rumors of rioting here 
and there. Chinese servants suddenly disappear- 
ing from the caravan in the night, gone no one 
would say where. The majordomo, suave, bow- 
ing, urging detours, suggesting humbly yet insist- 
ently that certain villages be avoided. Fresh 
heads swinging in the bamboo baskets outside 
walled towns. And terraced hillsides and flat 
fields strangely deserted by the coolies. Lou 
Henry alone ! 

The journey became a race, foot-servants left 
behind, too-heavy baggage discarded, the horses 
lashed forward long into the night. At Peking 
he caught the first train southward. 

The little foreign settlement outside the walls of 
Tien-Tsin was as usual, undisturbed and tranquil. 
At the Engineers' Club he heard that Wilson had 
come down from Mongolia; had had a ^' scrap'' 
in a Chinese town where the mad villagers had 
suddenly risen and mobbed him as he rode in, but 
nothing serious. Wilson and Newberry were 
staying at the country house of Detring, the Ger- 



HERBERT HOOVER 265 

man Commissioner of Customs. Oh, there were 
rumors, but there were always rumors in China. 
Nothing could really break loose, with Allied 
troops right on the ground. But from army head- 
quarters a detachment was being hurriedly sent 
to Peking. Nothing serious, of course, but it did 
look as though there might be a bit of a row up 
there. 

Then like a thunderclap the news that the lega- 
tions at Peking were besieged. The troops had 
arrived and been surrounded; the wires flashed a 
cry for help, and were silent. Another detach- 
ment of troops marched through Tien-Tsin's 
streets, going to the rescue, and vanished into, the 
silence that hung over the North. 

^^The folks at home will be worried,^' Hoover 
said. ^^We 'd better cable that we are safe.'^ 
The cable offices were crowded; hundreds of mes- 
sages were going home. It might be a good idea 
to get Lou Henry down the river to Tong Ku, 
under the protection of the Allied war-ships. 
But Lou Henry scouted the idea; she was per- 
fectly safe where she was, and in any case she 
would not go without him. Of course he could 
not leave. Power brings its own obligations; 
there were not only his American staff to consider, 
but the hundreds of Chinese employees who were 
gathering in Chang's compound. 

From the roof of the Engineers ' Club that night 



266 THE MAKING OF 

the Americans watched the fires that blazed be- 
yond the walls of old Tien-Tsiu. The missions 
were burning. 

^'But they won't attack us. They wouldn't 
dare ! ' ' 

**I don't know about that. But we can handle 
them if they do." 

There were about five thousand Allied troops 
in Tien-Tsin ; they and the imperial Chinese Army 
would be able to subdue the mobs. The imperial 
army was with them, obviously; the empress 
dowager would not dare to defy all Europe. 

The following night there was a flurry of an 
attack from the southwest. The old artillery 
of the English troops was quickly rushed 
through the streets; trenches were hastily being 
dug for the infantry. Lou Henry was red- 
cheeked and bright-eyed with excitement. A mob 
of angry coolies had boldly entered the blue-brick 
house and smashed some of her best china, jerking 
the cloth from the luncheon-table before her eyes. 
She had driven them out of the house with a 
bread-knife. Army officers were serious but con- 
fident. They could repulse the mob if it attacked 
again. Chang Yen Mao sat grave and composed 
in his European palace. He did not know the 
orders given the imperial army ; doubtless it would 
soon act to protect the foreigners. But who could 
know the decrees of inscrutable Fate? These 



HERBERT HOOVER 267 

things would pass, as all things passed. Mean- 
while he sipped his delicately flavored tea from 
bowls of old porcelain, while hourly his compound 
grew more crowded with terrified Chinese. 

The Boxer attack was nothing. It lasted per- 
haps half an hour. A spattering of rifle fire 
flashing in the darkness, the answering boom of 
English guns. The mob went down before artil- 
lery like grain before a scythe. Army officers 
smiled. Those ignorant yellow beggars had 
thought that their secret magic calisthenics would 
make their bodies proof against foreign bullets. 
My word! one English gun could handle a thou- 
sand Boxers ! No, absolutely no real danger, my 
dear fellow! 

The American flag floated over the Engineers* 
Club. Lou Henry gave another to the breeze 
above the blue-brick house. Gallant Lou Henry, 
gay as ever, tucking a revolver into her belt. 
^^Just in case. Nonsense! Of course I won't 
leave ! Only, one never knows about the serv- 
ants ; some of them have left already. I 'm going 
down to see what 's happening at Mrs. Drew's. 
Listen — promise me.'' Hands holding his coat 
lapels. ^^You won't get into the fighting without 
letting me know! Then that 's all right. Good- 
by, dear. I '11 see you at dinner. ' ' 

Wilson and Newberry had come in, circling the 
fighting, arriving too late to take a hand in it them- 



268 THE MAKING OF 

selves. News came that the reinforcements sent 
to Peking had been driven back and now lay ten 
miles to the northward, surrounded and unable 
to come farther. That morning another attack 
from the north, quickly silenced. Fighting on 
the other side of the river, but nothing important. 
Apparently the flurry was over now; the Boxers 
were beaten. 

Sunday was one long breath of relief. One felt 
the tension a little, after it was ended. Madden- 
ing, the way this had happened, just at the time 
that it would most cripple his work ! It would be 
months, perhaps, before the international tangle 
was straightened out so that he could get on with 
his job. 

He sat long at the Sunday luncheon, relaxed, 
smiling at Lou Henry across the white table. 
Through the open windows, with the breeze that 
stirred the curtains, came a distant boom, fol- 
lowed by a vibration that lightly chattered the 
cups in their saucers. He sat up, met Lou 
Henry ^s eyes, and rose quickly. She was on her 
feet, too, and they stared at each other. 

^^Bert?" 

' ' Sounds like it. That 's artillery. ' ' Another 
boom came, and another. 

From a roof-top, with field-glasses, they gazed 
over the town at the wide plain. There was no 
doubt about it. The empress dowager was defy- 



J 



HERBERT HOOVER 269 

ing the world. Foreigners in China were doomed. 
The advance center of the imperial army was at- 
tacking, ringed around them. Bursts of smoke 
from the field-artillery ; the long drawn scream of 
shells overhead ; brick walls crashing in clouds of 
dust where they struck. 

He must get Lou Henry into the center of town, 
where the danger would be less. He must go out 
and fight. Hardly ^ve thousand men against a 
quarter of a million. Every man would count. 
How many rifles were there in the house? He 
must have one. He must give one to Lou Henry. 

She packed a few things, hurriedly, in the de- 
serted rooms. One Chinese boy waited stolidly in 
the hallway, asking for orders. He was sent to 
the Engineers^ Club to get a rifle and send a cart 
for Lou Henry. The three-pound guns of the 
English were answering now. Five thousand men 
against the imperial army. 

The boy returned, bringing a useless Marlin 
rifle with a hastily whittled wooden plug stuck 
rakishly in the place of a missing sight, and a note 
from the boys at the club. It was a pencil- 
scrawled parody of a letter from an English 
director to a distant mining engineer saying that 
complaints about insufficient equipment were un- 
precedented and should not occur again. He 
grinned while he read it, Lou Henry chuckling be- 
side him. Good old game scouts, those American 



270 THE MAKING OF 

boys! And Lou Henry, standing straight beside 
him, brave and sweet as ever, with death at yellow 
hands coming closer with every boom of the guns. 
A man feels some emotions that remake his soul. 

He went with her to Mrs. Drew's house near 
the center of town. Drew, from the customs of- 
fice, was there, and Detring, the German Commis- 
sioner of Customs. Detring 's country house had 
been burned and his faithful servants killed. The 
Chinese were using flat trajectory field-pieces; 
most of the shots were going wild over the town 
or striking the brick buildings on the outskirts. 
Drew's house would probably be safest for the 
women on that account. Not that there was any 
real danger^ of course : one must at least keep up 
that fiction before the women; they must not be 
alarmed. He left Lou Henry among them, tran- 
quil and smiling, giving him across the crowd 
just one long look to carry with him. 

Well, if the Chinese did not bring up more effi- 
cient guns or make an attack in force, there might 
still be a slender chance. Five thousand men 
could hold off scattering attacks for a while ; help 
would get to them as soon as possible. What 
about food for a siege? Was there enough to 
last — how long? How was it being handled! 

At army headquarters no one minimized the 
danger now. When the imperial army attacked 
in force there would be nothing for it but hand- 



HERBERT HOOVER 271 

to-hand fighting through the streets until the end. 
Food! No one had done anything about that. 
Certainly he could take charge of it. 

Already stores and warehouses were being 
opened and the scanty supply of food was scatter- 
ing. He stopped that. He commandeered wag- 
ons, bulldozed dealers, put his men in charge here 
and there, gathered up the loose ends, got things 
in rough order. Enough food for ten days. He 
organized a rationing system. The Cossacks 
were doing splendid work ; two hundred Russians, 
alone, unsupported, charging and charging again 
the whole imperial army. Fighting again across 
the river, and the river front unprotected. 
Tinned goods, cases of milk, sacks of flour, grad- 
ually being gathered into one big warehouse. A 
rumor that the blue-brick house had been struck 
by a shell. A rumor that the Chinese in Chang's 
palace were sniping from the roofs. Some one 
must look after that. Wilson would do it. At 
any rate, there was plenty of rice. 

TWenty-four hours, and the food supply was 
taken care of. Hot sun on the roofs, hot dust in 
the streets where the smell of cordite hung in the 
breathless air. He reached Drew's house at din- 
ner-time. There were the softly shaded lights 
gleaming on white linen, silver and thin glass 
sparkling, Lou Henry's vivid face and smooth 
shoulders above an evening gown. Other women 






272 THE MAKING OF 

in evening dress. He was seized upon by a laugh- 
ing hostess and urged into an empty chair. 
^' Never mind about your clothes. Everything 's 
so upset! Wang, a plate of soup for Mr. Hoo- 
ver.'' 

Chatter. Some one had lost her silver spoons, 
stolen by a fleeing servant, no doubt. And 
Chinese servants had always been so dependable, 
too; really the perfect servants. ^'As I 've often 
said, I don't know what I could do without — " 

That was the woman 's way of playing the game, 
no doubt. A line of barricades should be throuTi 
up along the river bank. The stream was only 
eighty feet wide. In case the attack came from 
that direction the warehouses could not be held 
long. The sound of the guns had lulled, which 
perhaps meant that the attack was coming now. M 

Mrs. Drew leaned forward, catching his atten- ™ 
tion with a gesture of a jeweled hand. ^^Mr. 
Hoover, do tell us ! It surely is n't true, what the 
army officers say — that we are really in danger? 
That the whole imperial army is against us I" 

She did not know ! None of them knew, except 
Lou Henry. The silence had the quality of the 
instant after a lightning flash when sky and earth 
in breathless suspense await the thunder. 
Around the white circle of the table bare shoul- 
ders bent forward, lips were slightly parted, 
widening eyes were fixed on him. He sat exposed, 



HERBERT HOOVER 273 

defenseless, in the gaze of those questioning eyes 
while his overstrained young nerves, caught un- 
aware in a moment of relaxation, failed him. 
Then, like a slender arm thrust between him and 
the intolerable moment, Lou Henry's voice res- 
cued him. 

' ' Real danger 1 When our men are here ! ' ' she 
said quickly. ^^Why it 's absurd !'' Her mouth 
crinkled with mischief. ^^ Except that Bert 's 
probably planning to starve us to death with our 
groceries tied up in red-tape! Is it true you Ve 
had all the vegetable man's potatoes locked up 
like criminals ! ' ' 

He got away under cover of the laughter. 
Never a woman like her in all the world. Game to 
the core of her, standing up to the last with a 
smile in her eyes. And he had promised her that 
when the end came he would kill her himself. 

Well, what was to be done now? Barricade 
the river front, he was told by Captain Bailey at 
headquarters. The Chinese were building a pon- 
toon-bridge up the river, intending to float it down 
and cross on it. 

All day Tuesday in the sun on the deserted 
Bund. Running six coolies back and forth from 
the warehouses with sacks of rice. Keeping them 
covered by his rifle every second. Trotting be- 
side them, back and forth. Bullets singing past 
his ears, striking spatters of brick-dust from the 



274 THE MAKING OF 

warehouse wall. Booming of artillery on the 
other side of the town. 

Working on in the dusk up to the last moment 
of twilight. Eifles spitting fire now through the 
gathering darkness. Dust rising in sudden spurts 
about his feet. In the shadows, coming serenely 
toward him, Lou Henry in walking-clothes, with 
an English express-rifle in a sling strap swung 
from her shoulder. 

^ ' What are you domg here I ' ' 

^'I came to see what you are doing, and to 
help!" And bullets coming like bees across the 



river 



*^Go back where you '11 be safe!" 

*^Let me handle the coolies while you rest a 
while. You can't keep this up all night." 

^'We 're almost done. We 're using the last of 
the rice-sacks. Go back. Please get out of this 
fire." 

Then two days in which he hardly saw her. 
She was working in the big building of the Tien- 
Tsin Club, now become a hospital. The wounded 
were coming in now, carried in litters through the 
choking streets, laid in packed rows in the club 
corridors, on the steps, on the sidewalk. There 
were no trained nurses and only one doctor. Lou 
Henry was in charge of half the hospital ; mthout 
anjcsthetics or medicines, untrained and helped 
only by women more helpless than herself, she 



HERBERT HOOVER 275 

was improvising beds and operating-tables, cut- 
ting blood-soaked garments from torn bodies, 
washing womids, working without pause in the 
heat and stench. 

Over the roofs the shells still whined and 
shrieked. The German Club had been struck, and 
the Astor House. Here and there buildings 
crumbled into shattered heaps of brick; the air 
was full of mortar-dust. Chang Yen Mao was in 
trouble, brought up before a court martial charged 
with sending messages to the enemy. Carrier- 
pigeons flying with messages from one side of the 
besieging army to the other passed above the 
roofs of Chang's palace, and to watchers outside 
the compound walls it seemed that the birds came 
from the palace itself. A thousand terrified 
Chinese, the family and servants of Chang and 
the Chinese staff of the mining companies, were 
huddled together in the compound, praying to 
their gods and to the Director-General's American 
engineer. 

It had been wise forethought that put Wilson 
inside the palace walls and kept him there. Wil- 
son had learned Chinese, and day and night he 
had been with Chang, watching all that occurred 
in the compound. He was able to testify posi- 
tively that the pigeons had not come from Chang 
Yen Mao's household. He and Herbert Hoover 
stood sponsor for it before the authorities and 



278 THE MAKING OF 

The words released thoughts that were better 
kept chained down. There was a stillness in the 
group. So, stretching his legs and thrusting his 
hands deep into his pockets, Hoover asked cas- 
ually, ''Well, suppose you could! What would 
you sayf 

''I guess I 'd have to cable, 'Not so safe,' " Ma- 
gee replied. One felt better after that laugh. 

The sound of new guns was heard on the sixth 
day; reinforcements lighting on the other side of 
the besieging circle. That night from the roof of 
the Engineers' Club field-glasses picked up the 
bursts of fire from those friendly guns. They 
did not get through, but they were there. Twelve 
hours later the yellow ring was broken and the 
troops came — Americans, British, Japanese, Ital- 
ians, Germans, and Russians marching through 
the streets, cheered by laughing, weeping, praying 
crowds. The siege was ended. 

Such are the amazing ways of women that then, 
when the real danger was over, Lou Henry soaked 
his blue-serge shoulder with unrestrained tears. 
God bless her. 

' ' You must n 't mind me, ' ' she said. ' ' I — I 
guess I 'm a little tired. And you know I 'm so 
disappointed because now they '11 never let me do 
any geological work in China. ' ' 

The imperial Chinese Army withdrew a little 
and hung on the horizon like a cloud, from which 



HEEBERT HOOVER 279 

still came lightning flashes at intervals. But the 
river running down to Tong Ku was open. He 
would take Lou Henry down there, out of the 
range of a chance bullet, away from a town filled 
with looting troops. He lingered only long 
enough to discr ^ with Dr. Drake, of the Chinese 
University, his plan for organizing a building-and- 
loan company to help rebuild the shell-wrecked 
buildings, and to see Chang Yen Mao. 

That dignified mandarin sat in profound med- 
itation amid the chaos of China. The death of 
two German missionaries at the hands of a chance 
mob had cost the Empire Kiao-chau ; Port Arthur 
and Ta-lien-wan; Kwang-chau-Wan, Wei-hai-wei 
and four hundred miles of territory around 
Hongkong. What vengeance would the hungry 
powers now exact? Yesterday he had possessed 
all the wealth of the mines of China; to-morrow 
into what European pockets would it go? 

There was no doubt that Chang's fears were 
well founded. No one questioned that the powers 
would now divide the richest parts of China into 
** zones of influence" in which a Chinese could 
have small hope of developing mines. The prob- 
lem was to find a method of guarding Chang's 
interests through all the delicate complications of 
international politics and business. Detring, the 
German Commissioner of Customs, in whom 
Chang had long reposed confidence, advised an 



280 THE MAKING OF 

attempt to form a mining company in England 
under the British laws, the stock to be held jointly 
by Europeans and Chinese. Chang Yen Mao con- 
trolled the Kai Ping coal mines, rich and unex- 
ploited fields. Let him put these into the hands 
of his Western friends as the basis of a company 
protected by British laws and British armies. A 
holding company could then be organized to take 
the mines at their present valuation and resell 
them to a mining company at such an increased 
figure as to make Chang's part-interest in the 
mining company equal to the entire present value 
of the mines. In this manner did Western finance 
make four dollars grow where one had grown be- 
fore. Chang could lose nothing by this plan, 
while on the other hand if he hesitated he would 
lose all. The angered Western nations, demand- 
ing revenge for the attack on their flags and cit- 
izens, would seize the mines outright, and Euro- 
pean financiers, multiplying their value by West- 
ern methods of capitalization and development, 
would own the whole. The situation was as sim- 
ple as that; a situation eminently concrete and 
practical. 

Yet Chang Yen Mao, sitting among his old 
bronzes and painted silks, let the liours go by in 
long and devious thoughts. He considered the 
dignity of the Chinese Empire and the long cen- 
turies in which, proud and aloof, his people had 



HERBERT HOOVER 281 

ignored the little clutching fingers of the West. 
Chinese jewelers had wrought marvelously the 
soft pure gold from Chinese mines in those old 
times when the barbarian English and Germans 
were wild men hunting with clubs through the 
forests. Since the memory of man began China 
had been mistress of herself, wise, sophisticated, 
learned in the arts of life, gazing with indifference 
too profound for scorn upon the childish follies 
and furies of the little evanescent peoples beyond 
her borders. Now her soil was desecrated, her 
silken reticences torn from her by brutal hands, 
and she stood defenseless with the guns of the 
barbarians at her heart. Expediency counseled a 
facile surrender, but expediency is the voice of the 
passing moment, fleeting as time, leaving not even 
an echo. Chang Yen Mao was concerned for the 
immemorial dignity and honor of China, a small 
part of which was in his keeping. 

The compound of his palace was in an uproar. 
Feet clattered on the graveled paths, voices chat- 
tered everywhere. The thousand Chinese impris- 
oned there during the siege were struggling each 
with his own indecisions. Foreign troops con- 
trolled the town ; fighting was still going on to the 
northward, but the river was open to Tong Ku. 
Changes sharp-voiced Number One wife with all 
her servants and retainers clamored to be taken to 
Japan, and Wilson was contending with a hun- 



I 



282 THE MAKING OF 

dred details of the journey. Chang Yen Mao was 
appealed to from every side. Meditation was im- 
possible, and a decision could not be reached. 
The days passed in turmoil, and the foreigners 
departed. 

A w^eek later Herbert Hoover was waiting with 
Lou Henry in the custom-house at Tong Ku for 
the steamer that would take them back to Amer- 
ica. The Boxer rebellion had ended his useful- 
ness in China and he was going away with failure 
behind him and uncertainty ahead. Bewick, 
Moreing would place him somewhere in the world 
that was covered by their mining interests, but 
it might be in a place to which no man could ask 
a white woman to go. 

The big compound of the Chinese Engineering 
and Coaling Company was crowded with refugees. 
Military beds had been crowded into the offices of 
the two-story custom-house and men were sleep- 
ing in the warehouses. Outside the bar a steamer 
lay, unable to get away, and the days dragged 
aimlessly. Then down the river in a little boat 
came Chang Yen Mao with Detring. 

Chang Yen Mao had decided to accept the ad- 
vice of his German friend. They had come to ask 
Herbert Hoover to take to London Chang's pro- 
posal that an English company take over the 
mines and develop them under the protection of 
the Allies. Already the Eussians and Japanese 



HERBERT HOOVER 283 

were marching upon the mines with the intention 
of seizing them. There was need for haste. But 
the interests of China must be guarded. Chinese 
must share with foreigners the ownership and con- 
trol of the mines. 

They discussed the project in a bare ropm in 
the custom-house, overlooking the godown of the 
coaling company and the masts of idle ships. The 
silken robes of Chang Yen Mao concealed the 
small straight chair in which he sat, his hands 
folded in his wide sleeves. Detring, the genial 
bearded German, rested an elbow on the office desk 
and smoked ceaselessly, lighting one cigar from 
the stump of another, while Bert Hoover, young 
and inexperienced in finance, but alert, sat on the 
edge of the hard narrow bed and listened. 

He knew the mines, Detring explained, and al- 
ready he had his connections in London. Chang 
Yen Mao and Detring believed he could put the 
deal through. Upon his doing so depended the 
only hope of saving any part of the mines for 
Chang or for China. It was a last hope, a desper- 
ate attempt, but if the effort succeeded it would 
mean millions for the London company and for 
the Chinese. 

''All right. Put the proposition in writing,'' 
Herbert Hoover said. 

The papers were prepared; the contracts, the 
power of attorney to Herbert Hoover, signed in 



282 THE MAKING OF 

dred details of the journey. Chang Yen Mao was 
appealed to from every side. Meditation was im- 
possible, and a decision could not be reached. 
The days passed in turmoil, and the foreigners 
departed. 

A week later Herbert Hoover was waiting with 
Lou Henry in the custom-house at Tong Ku for 
the steamer that would take them back to Amer- 
ica. The Boxer rebellion had ended his useful- 
ness in China and he was going away with failure 
behind him and uncertainty ahead. Bewick, 
Moreing would place him somewhere in the world 
that was covered by their mining interests, but 
it might be in a place to which no man could ask 
a white woman to go. 

The big compound of the Chinese Engineering 
and Coaling Company w^as crowded with refugees. 
Military beds had been crowded into the offices of 
the two-story custom-house and men were sleep- 
ing in the warehouses. Outside the bar a steamer 
lay, unable to get away, and the days dragged 
aimlessly. Then down the river in a little boat 
came Chang Yen Mao with Detring. 

Chang Yen Mao had decided to accept the ad- 
vice of his German friend. They had come to ask 
Herbert Hoover to take to London Chang's pro- 
posal that an English company take over the 
mines and develop them under the protection of 
the Allies. Already the Eussians and Japanese 
f 



HERBERT HOOVER 283 

were marching upon the mines with the intention 
of seizing them. There was need for haste. But 
the interests of China must be guarded. Chinese 
must share with foreigners the ownership and con- 
trol of the mines. 

They discussed the project in a bare ropm in 
the custom-house, overlooking the godown of the 
coaling company and the masts of idle ships. The 
silken robes of Chang Yen Mao concealed the 
small straight chair in which he sat, his hands 
folded in his wide sleeves. Detring, the genial 
bearded German, rested an elbow on the office desk 
and smoked ceaselessly, lighting one cigar from 
the stump of another, while Bert Hoover, young 
and inexperienced in finance, but alert, sat on the 
edge of the hard narrow bed and listened. 

He knew the mines, Detring explained, and al- 
ready he had his connections in London. Chang 
Yen Mao and Detring believed he could put the 
deal through. Upon his doing so depended the 
only hope of saving any part of the mines for 
Cliang or for China. It was a last hope, a desper- 
ate attempt, but if the effort succeeded it would 
mean millions for the London company and for 
the Chinese. 

^'All right. Put the proposition in writing,'' 
Herbert Hoover said. 

The papers were prepared; the contracts, the 
power of attorney to Herbert Hoover, signed in 



2S4 THE MAKING OF 

India ink by Chang's brush. They were stowed 
in an inside pocket of the blue-serge coat, and 
Detring and Chang Yen returned to Tien-Tsin. 

The kaleidoscope in the hands of Chance had 
turned again ; the future had a new pattern. Her- 
bert Hoover sailed for London, not as a young 
mining engineer whose work had been ended by 
the Boxer troubles, but as a fledgling financier 
with valuable mining properties in his breast 
pocket. Mr. Moreing received him with respect 
and heard him with growing enthusiasm. Bewick, 
Moreing was not an exploiting company, but a 
company that handled and developed actual min- 
ing properties ; however, its connected and subsi- 
diary companies were in the heart of international 
finance. Chang Yen Mao's option and memoran- 
dum were the center of conferences in offices and 
banks. A holding company was organized to buy 
it, capitalize, and resell it. A second company 
sprang into existence to purchase it and float the 
stock on the market. The Chinese Engineering 
and Mining Company, Ltd., took over the actual 
development of the mines, and Herbert Hoover 
returned to China as its general manager, with a 
crumb from the financial feast — fifty thousand 
dollars' worth of stock in the company. 

With him went two men to see Chang Yen Mao 
and complete the financial arrangements trans- 
ferring the property. At the last moment new 



HERBERT HOOVER 285 

complications developed. Chang Yen Mao stood 
firm in his insistence that the company should be 
controlled equally by Chinese and foreigners, that 
Chinese must be on the board of directors, and 
that the central offices of the company should be 
in China. His doubts had come back upon him. 
Days went past in conversations that came to no 
conclusion. Then the new general manager inter- 
vened; he became a mediator between the oppos- 
ing interests, he persuaded the white men to yield 
to Chang's conditions. A memorandum was 
drawn, signed by Chang Yen Mao and by Herbert 
Hoover as representative of the company; it was 
ratified by cable from London. The final arrange- 
ments were completed, and the transfer was 
made. Now for the real job of developing the 
mines ! 

He began his work confidently and happily. At 
last he had a free hand in the carrying out of the 
plans so long delayed by the baffling web of 
Chinese evasions. He was working for Euro- 
peans, and it was the period in mining develop- 
ment when American engineers were coming into 
their own. London, the center of the world's 
mining, was depending on proved American enter- 
prise, initiative, and resourcefulness in all the 
corners of the earth ; the energj^ of the white man, 
intensified by its conflict with the American wilder- 
ness, was giving new force to the currents of 



286 THE MAKING OF 

world commercialism. American qualities of 
mind and character, the qualities that were Her- 
bert Hoover's, had won recognition and respect. 
The Kai Ping mines were his to direct and 
develop. 

The old mines leaped into new life. American 
methods and machinery were installed; tunnels 
driven, railway tracks laid. The coal poured 
from the earth into long trains of box-cars and 
roared down chutes into the maws of waiting 
ships. The American wage system and bookkeep- 
ing wiped out the ancient customs of coolie com- 
munism and official graft. And all this was but 
the beginning; larger plans, and larger, grew in 
the imagination of the new general manager of the 
Chinese Engineering and Mining Company, Lim- 
ited. 

But Chang Yen Mao was perturbed. He con- 
sulted anxiously with his young friend. The 
directors of the company were meeting in Brus- 
sels, on the other side of the world. The Chinese 
directors had no voice in their decisions. When 
were the terms of the memorandum to be carried 
outf When were the central offices to be in 
China? 

The foreign powers had not held territory in 
China, as had been feared. The dowager empress 
still ruled the empire from the labyiinths of the 



HERBERT HOOVER 287 

Forbidden City, and her eyes rested coldly on her 
former favorite, Chang Yen Mao. Had he sold 
to the hated foreigners the mines she had given 
into his care? 

It was true that Chang Yen Mao and his 
Chinese friends were making profits from the 
mines. It was true that they had gained greatly 
in money by the organization of the new company; 
But there was more than money involved in this 
matter; there were Chinese honor and Chinese 
pride, and the career of the coolie boy who had 
won to a high place by the Dragon Throne. Al- 
ready a year had gone by since he had listened to 
Detring's advice, and as he thought of that long 
period, he thought, too, when were the promises 
made to him then to be carried out! Chang Yen 
Mao was cahn, but in his eyes a failing hope 
begged reassurance. 

It was not difficult to give. The terms of the 
memorandum would undoubtedly be carried out; 
these things took time. The memorandum had 
been included in the agreement made; Changes 
condition had been made thoroughly clear in Lon- 
don. The general manager of the mines had noth- 
ing to do with these matters ; his responsibility had 
ended with the forming of the company, in which 
Chang's wishes had been scrupulously carried out. 
In the meantime the mines were daily pouring out 



288 THE MAKING OF 

more coal, and it was in them that his interest lay. 
His thoughts ran far into the future, busy with 
widening plans for Chinese mining. 

The blow fell suddenly, with the arrival of two 
young Belgians sent out from London in response 
to Chang's protests. Belgian and German inter- 
ests had bought out English and Chinese stock- 
holders in the Chinese Engineering and Mining 
Company; Belgians and Germans now held con- 
trol, and the terms of the memorandum would not 
be carried out. The board of directors repudi- 
ated the original agreement which the former own- 
ers of the company had made with Herbert Hoov- 
er. The memorandum would not hold in law, be- 
cause the paper on which it was written was not 
attached to the paper on which the option was 
written. Therefore, legally, the memorandum 
was not part of the option. The control of the 
mines rested entirely in foreign hands; the 
Chinese who still held their stock could draw their 
dividends, but they had no authority in the man- 
agement of the property. 

Chang Yen Mao heard this statement in silence, 
sitting upright on a plush-upholstered arm-chair 
in the drawing-room of the great palace that he 
had made European because he was a progressive 
Chinese eager to help in the modernizing of China. 
Then he rose in his robes of heavy silk edged with 
wave-borders of color and dismissed his Western 



HEEBERT HOOVER 289 

visitors. He had seen in their faces that they 
spoke the truth ; he had betrayed China, and it is 
not becoming that a man, like a rat, should scurry 
into corners seeking escape from the consequences 
of his deeds. 

He sat quietly in the Chinese rooms of his com- 
pound, a fan of carved ivory and painted silk in 
his fingers, when his young American friend came 
hurriedly to see him. The young American was 
angry, burning with a sense of outraged justice 
and with scorn of men who seize on legal quibbles 
to cover broken faith. He came to assure Chang 
Yen Mao that he had had no part in this calamity ; 
that he would not be a party to it; that he would 
leave China before he would consent to it. These 
protestations were unnecessary. Chang Yen 
Mao had long kno^vn that the young American was 
honest and his trust in him was unshaken. 

Herbert Hoover went out to struggle in the 
Western way with an implacable fact. Nothing 
could be done. The board of directors persisted 
in its refusal to carry out^the terms of the mem- 
orandum and stood on its legal rights. It was 
a lesson in differing national points of view for 
a young man of twenty-five; English and Amer- 
icans, he found, worked together in amity on the 
basis of the spirit of an agreement; Continental 
financiers followed an agreement to the letter. 
He resigned the managership of the Chinese En- 



290 THE MAKING OF 

gineering and Mining Company and arranged to 
go home. His brother Theodore was a mining en- 
gineer now ; they could open offices together in San 
Francisco and handle American mines. 

Chang Yen Mao remained quietly behind his 
screens of teak-wood and silk, arranging his af- 
fairs, and awaiting the fatal command from 
Peking. It came at last, a scroll of parchment 
rolled on an ivory wand and wrapped in silk tied 
with golden cords, — a formal request from the 
empress to come to Peking and be beheaded. 
Chang Yen Mao, having read it with proper rev- 
erence, rolled it again in its imperial wrappings 
and gave orders that a cart be brought and that 
his servants make him ready for the journey. 

It was evening before the preparations were 
completed and his farewells said. The lanterns 
were glowing in the compound above the lotus 
pools and the silently watching garden gods. The 
cart was at the gate, waiting beyond the three 
screens of dragon-carved teak-wood inlaid with 
mother-of-pearl. A silent-footed servant, bowing 
low and hiding his face behind crossed wide 
sleeves, brought the word to Chang, who rose and 
walked slowly across the courtyard, looking at it 
for tlie last time. The red brick walls of the 
palace rose before him ; he passed its doorway, and 
then turned again and entered the great hall with 
its marble floor and huge Western fireplaces. He 



HERBERT HOOVER 291 

stopped for a moment to look at the European 
theater, at its velvet-curtained stage, its machine- 
made carpets and stiff rows of varnished wooden 
chairs with upward-folded seats. He passed 
noiselessly into the drawing-room and stood for 
some time looking about him, examining with his 
eyes the upholstered chairs, the patterned, shining 
hardwood floor, the Wilton rugs, the lace cur- 
tains. Then he turned to go and saw in the door- 
way a young American who spoke quickly in 
Chinese, with a rapid breath catching at the 
words : ^ ^ Good evening, Chang Yen Mao. ' ' 

**Good evening, Mr. Wilson, '^ he replied cour- 
teously, and made excuses for seeming incivility. 
The cart was at the gate ; he was about to depart 
on an urgent journey; he regretted the necessity 
that made it impossible for him to entertain an 
honored guest. 

Wilson answered with equal courtesy that there 
was an error; no cart was at the gate. ^*Your 
servants have been mistaken, Chang Yen Mao. 
If you will send one to inquire — V^ 

They sat, and talked politely. The servant re- 
turned, perplexed. There was no cart at the gate. 
^^Send for it, at once," Chang commanded. 

There was another interval of conversation, 
unspoken questions and indecisions hidden by 
irrelevant words. Then Wilson broke through 
their reticence: ** There was no cart, Chang Yen 



292 THE MAKING OF 

Mao, because as I came through the gates I sent 
it away. Chang Yen Mao, it will be better for 
you to remain in your own palace to-night. ' ^ 

Chang rose quickly, with a movement startling 
in its swiftness. He stood straight to his full 
six feet, master in his own house and surrounded 
by servants, but his rising was hardly more swift 
than the appearance of Wilson's revolver. ^^Sit 
down, Chang Yen Mao," he said. ^^You are not 
going to Peking to-night. ' ' 

Chang Yen Mao, standing quite still and look- 
ing into those alien eyes above the little spark of 
light that glittered on the revolver barrel, said 
nothing. 

^'If you take one step toward that door or call 
just once, I will shoot. Sit down, Chang Yen 
Mao, and listen to me." 

So Chang Yen Mao, perceiving the futility of 
being killed by a mad American while on a journey 
to be beheaded, sat down, and Wilson also settled 
comfortably into a chair, the revolver upon his 
knee, and explained the situation with lucid 
Western logic. A Chinese friend hi Chang Yen 
Mao had sent Wilson the news of the death sen- 
tence, begging him to keep the victim from Peking 
at any cost. He himself had hastened to set in 
motion wheels within wheels in the Forbidden 
City. It might yet be possible to prevail upon the 
empress to withdraw the imperial command. 



HERBEIIT HOOVER 293 

Until it was withdrawn Chang was in honor bound 
to hasten to obey it. But how could he while a 
determined young man held him covered with a 
gun? ^^So we might as well make the best of it, 
Chang Yen Mao, and spend the night in pleasant 
conversation, ' ' Wilson added cheerfully. ''I 'm 
not going to let you out of my sight, for I know if 
I do you '11 give me the slip somehow. ' ' 

Chang Yen Mao sat motionless. His hands 
were hidden in the wide sleeves, and no twitch 
of eyelid or lip revealed what thoughts moved 
slowly behind his veiled eyes or what repressed 
desire for life stirred within him. He spoke at 
last of irrelevant things, a courteous man mak- 
ing conversation with a guest. So they sat 
through the night in the lighted European draw- 
ing-room, Wilson's watchful eyes struggling with 
sleepiness, Chang Yen Mao talking of ancient 
poets, the revolver between them. 

Morning brought a situation that hourly grew 
more complicated. Chang Yen Mao could not be 
kept indefinitely a prisoner in his own drawing- 
room. The cart still waited at the gate, and both 
men knew that when Wilson's vigilance for a mo- 
ment relaxed Chang Yen Mao would step into it 
and set out toward Peking and the headsman's 
block. But at noon a second messenger arrived, 
bringing the tidings of a commuted sentence. 
Chang Yen Mao might live, disgraced. His pea- § 



294 THE MAKING OF 

cock feather was taken from him ; the red translu- 
cent jewel of a Number Two mandarin was shorn 
from his cap. No longer might he wear the 
thumb-ring of three-colored jade, and never again 
could he enter the presence of the empress. The 
coal-mines of Kai Ping were in the hands of the 
foreign barbarians and not all the money scrupu- 
lously paid him in dividends on his stock could 
restore his honor among his own people or lift 
him again to the high place he had won by thirty 
years of service to the Dragon Throne. 

A broken man, still erect amid the ruin of his 
life, he said farewell to Herbert Hoover on the 
day before the sailing of the ship that would take 
the young American home. Their friendship had 
withstood the calamity in which their association 
ended, but the memory of it was bitter to the 
younger man. ^^I shall never return to China,'' 
he said. 

Twenty-seven years old, a successful mining 
engineer well known to mining men of all the 
world. Bewick, Moreing had offered him a junior 
partnership, and a little later Lou Henry was 
searching London for a small house that could be 
made a home center for his journeys. 

Two years of work as junior partner took him 
twice again around the whole curve of the earth. 
He knew now the mines of Burma, of Siberia, of 
Africa. Back in Stanford the underorraduates in 



HERBERT HOOVER 295 

the class rooms he had known thrilled to the knowl- 
edge that Herbert Hoover^ a Stanford man, was 
the highest salaried mining engineer of his years 
in the world. At twenty-seven he was honored in 
his profession, rich enough for his moderate needs, 
and looking forward to the time when he would 
be free to leave the game of money-making for- 
ever. He was surrounded by men to whom mil- 
lions of dollars were the counters with which they 
played the gigantic game of the world's finance, 
but he had no ambition to become a millionaire. 
His interest was still in his work of actual mining, 
in the development of mines, their organization 
and efficient production. 

Four hundred thousand dollars was the mark 
at which he would stop making money. That 
sum, which five years earlier would have dazzled 
him, appeared moderate enough now; it was in- 
deed a small sum compared to the amounts he 
handled in his work. But it would insure the 
safety and ample comfort of himself and his 
family, and to accumulate more would be foolish. 
His tastes and Lou Henry's were simple, com- 
pared to those of the people they knew. They 
cared for friends, but not for society. Their home 
was a pleasant place through which flowed most 
of the drift of Americans passing through London,> 
but their English friends protested that they did 
not cultivate the right people in the social world. 



296 THE MAKING OF 

Bert Hoover was indeed, as Lou Henry said play- 
fully, a perfect bear to people he did not like. 
They agreed that living was too full of real inter- 
est to be wasted on any one who did not give them 
something real in interest or friendship. 

Altogether he was a happy man, vigorously 
alive in a happy world, when he went as usual to 
his office that morning after Boxing Day in 1902. 
The flavor of the holiday mood was still in his 
spirit. The afternoon before, he had gone with 
Lou Henry and Mr. and Mrs. Eowe, with their 
children, to a Christmas pantomime, and there 
had been a supper later in the warmth of a crack- 
ling fire and the glow of the candles on the 
Christmas tree. Rowe had been a genial host, 
and the children, rosy with the excitement of such 
late hours, had wakened in Bert Hoover the emo- 
tion that children always touched. It was a 
buried memory of his own lonely childhood, and 
an aching pity for it, perhaps, that made him 
wish to give other children all that he had missed. 
Or perhaps it was the appeal of their funny ways 
and their ignorance of harsh things. He did not 
analyze it ; he only felt tenderness toward children. 

He thought of Rowers family as he went up in 
the lift to Bewick, Moreing^s offices, and behind 
that tliought was an image of Rowe himself. An 
able man, respected in the City and relied upon 
by Moreing, the senior partner. Bewick had long 



HEEBERT HOOVER 297 

been only a name to the company ; after Moreing, 
Rowe was the man longest in the firm's service. 
He had been in the office for ten years, and he 
had been taken into partnership at the same time 
Herbert Hoover entered the firm, Rowe as an office 
man handling financial matters and Hoover as 
actual manager of mining properties. Their busi- 
ness activities had hardly touched, but both in 
the office and out of it they respected and liked 
each other. 

The lingering impression left by the pleasant 
holiday together took him through Rowe's office 
for a morning greeting and a moment's chat. 
The office was empty, and passing through it he 
said to Rowe's secretary, ''Where 's Mr. Rowe 
this morning!" 

She looked up in surprise. ''Mr. Rowe has 
left town, sir. To be gone some time, I under- 
stood." 

He went on into his own office, slightly puzzled. 
Odd that Rowe had not mentioned the trip to him. 
A family matter, no doubt. Some one suddenly 
taken ill. He would call Mrs. Rowe and ask if he 
could offer any help. He gave his secretary the 
number and began opening letters. But when the 
connection was made he found himself trying to 
talk to a sobbing, incoherent voice that sent over 
the wire only a sensation of intolerable anguish 
and tragedy. Mrs. Rowe seemed unable to under- 



298 THE MAKING OF 

stand his eagerness to help her, or his sympathy. 
*^I '11 send Mrs. Hoover over at once/' he told her, 
and called his own home. 

* * Something seems to be terribly wrong over at 
the Eowes'. Mrs. Rowe wants yon, I think." 

^ ^ I '11 go over right away, Bert. ' ' 

"If there 's anything I can do, call me. I '11 be 
here until I hear from you." 

When Lon Henry's voice reached him again 
over the wire it was shaken and mystified. "I 
can't understand Mrs. Rowe at all, Bert. She is 
in some frightful trouble, hysterical, and she 
could n 't talk to me. She gave me a sealed letter 
for you. She was crying so terribly that I don't 
know what she meant to say, but it was something 
about Mr. Rowe's leaving the letter for you, and 
that she ought not to give it to you so soon, but she 
just couldn't stand it, not to." 

*^Send it down at once by messenger." 

An hour later he finished reading the incredible 
letter. Then he pressed the button under the 
edge of his desk, rose, and put his hands deep into 
his pockets. He found that his secretary had 
entered and that he was looking at her without 
seeing her. He told her to send for the chief of 
the accountants that audited Bewick, Moreing's 
books, and then he walked to the window and stood 
gazing out. The Bewick, Moreing Company, that 
liad schemed as solid as the Bank of England, was 



HERBERT HOOVER 299 

ruined. Rowe had looted it and fled. He had 
been looting it for years. Seven hundred thou- 
sand dollars had vanished into thin air with him. 
Rowe in his confession had made the point that 
the firm was not legally responsible ; he had bor- 
rowed money on securities intrusted to it, he had 
forged its name to documents, but the law could 
not hold the company responsible for his acts. 
Nevertheless the company was morally responsi- 
ble for money obtained on its credit and by one 
of its own partners. 

Seven hundred thousand dollars. The other 
partners, older men than he, richer men, could per- 
haps stand their share of the loss. His own share 
of it would wipe out everything he had. All that 
he had earned and saved in six years' hard work. 
The home he had planned in California, the secur- 
ity for the future that he had been building around 
himself and Lou Henry, the leisure he had thought 
so near, were gone. It gave a man a hollow, 
nauseating sensation at the solar plexus. He was 
almost jocular when he turned from the window 
to greet the chief accountant. It was rather a 
joke on the man, to tell him that the books he had 
audited for years would show on inspection a def- 
icit of seven hundred thousand dollars. 

It was humorous, too, in a way, to feel the sen- 
sation at the other end of the telephone wire when 
he called up the president of a bank to tell him 



300 HEEBEET HOOVER 

that the securities in his vaults were forged, and 
valueless. He spent the afternoon doing that, 
calling firm after firm as the white-faced account- 
ants dug their names from their investigations 
and reported them. Eowe had been devilishly 
clever about the job; it would be weeks before the 
last turn and twist of his trail could be uncovered. 
But enough was already apparent to show that 
the failure would be one of the worst in the City 
for many years. 

It showed certainly that if the firm met its 
moral obligations instead of saving itself by legal 
technicalities, not only his savings must go into 
the ruin but years of future work as well. But 
there was no question that Lou Henry would see 
the matter as he did. There was only one course 
to follow : the company must pay the debts it hon- 
estly owed, regardless of the law's loopholes. 
And the decision was in his hands, for he, the 
youngest partner, was the only one in London at 
the moment. The responsibility was on his shoul- 
ders, and he must carry it. 

Later, when the worst pressure on mind and 
nerves was over, he could think of his personal 
catastrophe. After all, he was only twenty-eight. 
He could begin again. 



CHAPTEK VI 

THE basis of American morality is a practical 
attitude toward concrete facts. God came 
with the pioneers to a new continent as He went 
from Egypt into the wilderness with the revolting 
slaves, a Leader and a Lawgiver in the immediate 
emergencies of a hard life. The Ten Command- 
ments were necessary principles of daily conduct 
in those small communities driven to mutual aid 
by common dangers and difficulties. It is neither 
right nor wise to anger, rob, or murder the neigh- 
bor upon whose life and well-being your own 
safety depends, and it is essential that a man 
speak the truth in a country where life depends 
upon a knowledge of facts. The early American 
grasp of these truths were expressed by that hard- 
headed and successful man Benjamin Franklin, 
whose career and writings were one reiterated 
statement that morality is the best policy. When 
the diffusion of scientific knowledge brought with 
it an increasing practical-mindedness, and religion 
as a mystic spiritual force faded into even dimmer 
outlines, a simple and definite morality remained 
still the basis of the American point of view. ^'I 

301 



302 THE MAKING OF 

mean, ' ' Herbert Hoover had said in Stanford, ^ ^ to 
make an honest success.'' 

It was his task now, within the tottering struct- 
ure of one of the world's greatest mining com- 
panies, to convince his associates that the only 
way to save the building was to let it fall. The 
firm might be kept from failure by repudiating its 
responsibility for the money and securities Rowe 
had taken. But morally that responsibility was 
upon it. It must choose between financial and 
moral ruin. Financial losses could be recovered, 
but a moral integrity once shattered could not be 
rebuilt. Honesty in this crisis was not only the 
one course that self-respecting men could pursue, 
it was also the wisest of business policies ; scrup- 
ulous honesty would in the end bring its reward. 

It was a hectic month, filled with conferences, 
debates, interviews with financiers and journal- 
ists. The failure was said to be the worst that 
had occurred in London for a century. Moreing 
was hastening from China, preceded by frantic 
cablegrams. The quiet security and happiness of 
Herbert Hoover 's busy days were gone as though 
they had never been; the present was a mass of 
harassing details and the future so doubtful that 
he could only postpone its problems until lime 
brought them to him. His only refuge was the 
home to which he returned exhausted in the de- 
pressing hours of the early morning, to find Lou 



HERBERT HOOVER 303 

Henry as gallant as ever, discussing and under- 
standing the whole situation with him and in 
complete accord with his decisions. 

The failure of Bewick, Moreing was a three- 
weeks' sensation in the City. Newspapers gave 
columns to it ; it was the gossip of offices and clubs. 
Hoover was praised for his attitude through it all, 
for his ability and his quickness in handling a sit- 
uation so unprecedented and so serious. But the 
praise was dearly bought by the sacrifice of the 
earnings of six years' hard work. The flurry of 
comment and compliment ended in a month and 
then he settled down to the four years' labor of 
rebuilding the company. 

The reorganization of its affairs gave him a 
larger part of the responsibility and a promise 
of an increased share in the profits yet to be 
made. The firm's assets consisted of the skill of 
its members and the prestige its financial integrity 
had gained by his quick decision. Against these 
stood a large indebtedness still to be cleared off, 
and his personal bank-account was empty. 

Lou Henry was cheerfully making her own hats 
and he was working far into the nights as he had 
done years earlier in Australia, when the old 
Chinese trouble slowly rose again, like a myste- 
rious cloud on the horizon. Little rumors ran be- 
fore it as puffs of dusty wind before a storm. ^ It 
was whispered that there had been sonaething 



304 THE MAKING OF 

shady, something tricky, in his connection with 
that old affair of the memorandum. To-day one 
heard that he had betrayed Chinese who trusted 
him ; to-morrow, that he had refused to save Chang 
Yen Mao ^s life at the hands of a firing squad until 
the old Chinese had bought his help with an otfer 
of fabulously rich mines. It was reported that 
Bewick, Moreing had sent him to China to get the 
mining concession and that, having cleverly got it 
in his own name, he had held out for a junior 
partnership before he would surrender it. These 
rumors, that vanished when a hand was stretched 
to grasp them, that appeared again impervious to 
reason and careless of consistency, were too 
vague to be combated and too annoying to be en- 
tirely ignored. It was impossible to find their 
source. They had arisen out of nothing, out of 
the air, created themselves between a smile and a 
glance, over tea-cups on hotel verandas in China 
and Japan, where life is so wearisome for the 
foreigner that the dullest become imaginative. 
They had risen like a swarm of gnats and circled 
half the world to reach London far in advance of 
tlie ship that brought Chang Yen Mao and his 
Chinese associates to fight their case in an Eng- 
lish court. 

That dignified mandarin and his friends in 
their garments of colored silk and the caps of silk 
and jewels below which hung their long plaits of 



HERBERT HOOVER 305 

hair braided with vermilion cords, appeared 
placid and fantastic in the gray streets of the 
City. They moved through it, like figures in a 
romance, gazing with aloof and non-committal 
eyes upon the strangeness of London, and a widen- 
ing circle of excitement spread around them. 
Wherever English newspapers sent their closely 
printed pages English people read with interest 
and amazement this story of the mandarins who 
had come out of the East to demand from English 
law redress for an injury done them by Belgians 
and Germans. Many aspects of the case were 
without precedent in legal annals, and for the mo- 
ment the picturesque spectacle of Chang Yen Mao 
before a Lord Chief Justice had no rival in pop- 
ular sensation. Rumors clustering about it ob- 
scured it like a fog and in its center with the 
Chinese Herbert Hoover was seen vaguely 
through the shifting mists. 

It was a relief when the routine of the case 
called him to testify to his part in the affair, to 
establish clearly the validity of the memorandum 
he had drawn so long ago as mediator between the 
two contesting factions. In short decisive sen- 
tences, hard and square as bricks piled upon 
bricks, he told the plain, unassailable facts. He 
had taken the original agreement to London upon 
the authority and at the request of Chang Yen 
Mao. He had signed the memorandum with full 



306 THE MAKING OF 

authority from Bewick, Moreing. He had con- 
sistently and continually maintained that the 
terms of the memorandum should be carried out. 
He had protested at every opportunity against the 
action of the board of directors in repudiating it. 

g- The success of the Chinese suit hung upon his 
testimony, and his testimony stood unshaken and 
incontrovertible by any other evidence. The case 
dragged on through days and weeks, but it was 
impossible to challenge successfully the facts as 
he had stated them, and judgment was given in 
favor of the Chinese. Out of the conflict of inter- 
ests and passions he emerged with the respect and 

^ confidence of all the antagonists; the Chinese en- 
trusted to him the care of their interest in 

% Europe; the principal member of the Hamburg 
group appointed him its representative in London 
mining companies; and the Belgians remembered 
him many years later as a man of great ability 
and unimpeachable honesty. 

^ Four years of work, four years of anxieties and 

hardships, paid for that decision to make good 
Rowe's defalcation. There was to him little of 
the dramatic or the picturesque about his labors, 
in Australia, in America, in Burma and China. 
The old routes around the world were familiar to 
him; the days brought him only the old problems 
stated in fresh terms or new problems to be met 
with hard thought and quick action. The firm 



HERBERT HOOVER 307 

was getting on its feet again ; in helping to put it 
there he was learning the coils and tangles of in- 
ternational finance, the problems of national and 
international affairs, the whole intricate web of 
human affairs. He was always working just a 
little too hard ; he was always just a little behind 
the thing he wished to know to-morrow. There 
was not time enough in the day for its difficulties, 
nor hours enough of night before sleep overpow- 
ered him to get all that he wanted of history, poli- 
tics, or economics from the books and reports that 
he always carried with him. It was a life so full 
that it had no space for introspection ; each experi- 
ence, following swiftly upon the one before it, did 
not so much strike upon a fresh surface as com- 
press itself quickly into the mass of experience 
that imperceptibly made him older, more able, 
more sophisticated. 

He was an organizer, a man whose life was the 
molding of men and materials into organizations 
that functioned swiftly and smoothly, without 
waste, producing efficiently the metals that make 
mankind master of the earth, and he saw a world 
unorganized, chaotic, wasteful; a mass of men 
tumultuous with conflicting desires, without order, 
reason, or definite purpose. He was a man whose 
mind worked logically and precisely, and he saw 
whole nations swayed by emotions into acts of 
folly, seizing like children the glittering things 



308 THE MAKING OF 

closest to them without thought for to-morrow. 
The secrets of European courts, of republican pol- 
itics, the intrigues and betrayals and sordid bar- 
gainings concealed by great names, were known 
to him ; he had crossed the horizons beyond which 
others imagined wisdom and nobility to be, and 
he knew that life was everywhere the same, a 
chaos of stupidities and greeds and futile ideal- 
isms. But his love for humanity and his faith 
in it were not shaken. He was made of the 
blood of democrats, and a belief in democracy is 
essentially a belief in the intelligence and honor 
of humanity. He loved mankind because he 
loved it; the source of his faith was deeper than 
the roots of the logic with which he defended it. 
There was no flavor of world-weary cynicism in 
the minds of the men and women who, in helping 
to create the young, vigorous, hopeful America, 
had created him. 

And he was happy. Despite discouragements, 
deferred hopes, and exhausting labor, he was 
happy. He was surrounded by loyal friends who 
had known him in those crises of danger or temp- 
tation that test men and friendships, and the basis 
of his life was an increasing content and satisfac- 
tion created by those intimate personal emotions 
which, given so little time for expression, still 
colored all the hours of his days. He was away 



HERBERT HOOVER 309 

from his home for months together ; when he was 
in London his time was crowded with other things ; 
but it was there that his own life centered, in a 
companionship that never ceased to be a fresh 
joy, and in plans and hopes for the children. He 
was a father now; father of Herbert, whose com- 
ing had been a long anxiety and a burst of song in 
the troubled months of 1904, and of Allan, two 
years younger, whose name remembered the Uncle 
Allan who had taken the orphaned Bertie on his 
knee in the desolate house at West Branch. All 
his free time was given to those chubby boys, with 
their wondering eyes and clutching fingers, and to 
the older Lou Henry in whose presence no one 
could cast one wistful backward glance at the 
memory of the girl who had leaped the fences at 
Stanford. 

It had always been hard to leave her; it was 
now impossible. With a decision that listened to 
no warning advice they picked up their home and 
carried it wherever his work took him. Before 
they celebrated the infant Herbert's first birthday 
he had traveled in his mother's arms twice around 
the world. Home moved with them, on passenger 
liners and trains, in stage-coaches and automo- 
biles. The surroundings did not matter: home 
was where they were together. Sometime when 
they could afford it they would have their house in 



'310 THE MAKING OF 

California and collect there all the books, pictures, 
furniture and clothing scattered from Shanghai to 
New York. 

Four years, and the Bewick, Moreing com- 
pany was on its feet once more, clear of debt, 
prosperous, with a prestige of honesty and ac- 
complishment greater than before the failure. 
He remained with it four years longer, organizing 
mining companies in London and mines in Aus- 
tralia, Korea, Siberia, and Burma, and looking 
forward to the time when his resources would 
justify his starting in business for himself as a 
consulting engineer. 

At last he opened his own offices in the mining 
center of the world, Lou Henry and the children 
were settled in the Eed House, and in the imper- 
ceptible relaxing of anxieties he became more ex- 
pressive of the geniality that had been hidden at 
first by the inhibitions of his childhood and later 
by the demands of his work. The Red House be- 
came a place remembered by Americans as a bit 
of home in London; a house of sunshine or fire- 
light, children and dogs, where one informally 
dropped in to meet interesting Americans just 
arrived from Siberia, Peru, Egypt, or Persia. 
Herbert Hoover, quietly one of the changing 
group around the fire, listened with enjoyment 
to the talk full of news and anecdote and 
repartee, watched Lou Henry's deft and graceful 



HERBEET HOOVER 311 

handling of a social situation, and spoke when he 
had something to say. Those laconic sentences 
packed with meaning or the long tales of his ad- 
ventures in far places, told with restraint and 
humor, were his expression of the pleasure he 
found in simply friendly contacts with people. 
His humor was the humor of America, — young as 
that nation is young, filled with a boy's sense of 
the ridiculous and delight in abrupt surprise, — but 
his thought was the carefully reached conclusion 
of a man who knew the peoples and governments 
of the earth. 

It was in 1910 that Dr. Jordan, returning to 
Stanford from peace conferences at The Hague, 
stopped at the Red House for a visit with the Bert 
Hoover whose friend he had been since the days 
at Adalante Villa. He told of the new Hague 
rulings, of the growth of international under- 
standing, of the hope that the world would at last 
begin that era of sanity and intelligent self-inter- 
est that would make wars impossible. That vision 
of a human society in order, functioning for the 
welfare of human beings, was a dream to arouse 
the enthusiasm of a Quaker boy who had become 
a great engineer with interests crossing every 
frontier between nations. Hoover listened with- 
out comment to the talk circling the dinner-table, 
and when he spoke at last he said only a few half- 
humorous words: ^^The world was never so full 



312 THE MAKING OF 

of peace talk — or so busy putting on its side- 
weapons.^' 

It was two years, then, since lie had given at 
Stanford the lectures that he collected and pub- 
lished as *^ Practical Mining,'' the book that he had 
intended to be his valedictory to his profession. 
Two years earlier he had had money enough to 
safeguard the future of his family; he had reached 
the point at which he had dreamed of leaving 
money-making and devoting his intelligence and 
energy to other tasks. But the eight years that 
had passed since the morning he ^ receiv ed Eowe's 
letter had involved him too deeply in^his work. 
After all, the possession of money did not make 
him free. The master of the many organizations 
he had created was their slave. He had begun 
tasks, organized companies, formulated plans, 
that he could not abandon, and each venture he 
undertook committed him to others that led still 
further into the future. Young engineers in all 
the corners of the earth depended on him as he had 
depended on Bewick, Moreing in the old days. 
Stock-holders looked to him for dividends, miners 
drew their living from his pay-rolls. He was 
entangled in the web of a world commercialism 
and he could not escape without breaking threads. 

The outward compulsions upon him were aided, 
too, by changes within himself. The Great Game 
he had thought to play and quit had captured him. 



HEEBERT HOOVER 313 

He had been outside it once; he had considered 
himself always essentially outside it, always mas- 
ter of himself, able to resist its temptations and to 
leave it when he chose. The lures by which it 
enticed others had been meaningless to him: he 
did not want money for its own sake, he did not 
care for high social position, for luxuries, for 
the purchased respect of other men. But no one 
can resist the age in which he lives. Its spirit 
controls all men's lives, making them either sub- 
servient to it or rebels against it. The Great 
Game had captured him by the opportunity it 
offered for concrete accomplishment. He did not 
want money or fame or ease, but he did want 
power, — the power to do the things he thought 
worth doing. 

There was, for instance, the matter of the lead 
and silver mines in Burma. He had explored 
those ancient abandoned workings of the Chinese 
on outcroppings long ago exhausted. He had 
studied the geology of the hills, the direction of 
strata and streams, under the heat of the Burmese 
sun in the breath of miasmatic swamps. He had 
lain for six delirious weeks in the grip of malarial 
fever to pay for his knowledge of those mines. 
And he was convinced that proper exploration 
and development would uncover there a wealth of 
lead and silver. 

He had returned to London to organize the com- 



314 THE MAKING OF 

pany to do the work. It had been difficult to do; 
his personal word and his authority as an expert 
stood as guarantee that the men who had listened 
to him and invested in the project would not lose. 
Yet there were troubles upon troubles within the 
company ; he had to hold directors in line, smooth 
down disputes, reconcile antagonistic personali- 
ties. He was convinced that if with one hand he 
could hold the company together and mth the 
other develop the Burmese properties, he could 
produce enormously rich lead and silver mines in 
those abandoned fields. It meant more wealth 
for the world ; it meant new employment for thou- 
sands of men; it meant above all a big job well 
done. But it would take years to accomplish. 

There was, too, his interest in the handling of 
low-grade ores. That had become, in a way, his 
special field, — taking the management of worked- 
out mines and reviving fresh values in them. He 
had done it first with the tailings-dumps of old 
Australian mines. No one had believed that the 
ill tals in them could ever be extracted in pa^dng 
quantities. They had been dug from the earth 
only to lie unused in wind and weather, returning 
io the earth. He had believed that they could be 
utilized, and he had held to that belief through 
tliree years of fruitless experiment, fighting a 
ceaseless battle for more faith and more capital 
while his chemists struggled with the technical 



HERBERT HOOVER 315 

problems. He had won : a whole district of Aus- 
tralia had leaped into new life, and the refuse of 
the mines was producing lead and silver and zinc. 

The whole surface of the earth was covered 
with opportunity for such reorganization — the 
unexploited wealth of Siberia, where he had taken 
charge of an entire district, a small principality 
of 175,000 people, feeding, clothing and giving 
new energy to them all by the working of its 
mines; the back country of Korea, where he had 
taught the little brown men American methods of 
production ; the veldt of South Africa ; the moun- 
tains of California. There was room enough in 
the work he was doing for all a man could have 
of constructive imagination and practical intelli- 
gence. He had gone into the game of money- 
making because he needed money; he stayed in it 
now because there was more than money in it. 
All that the world could offer of opportunity for 
usefulness, for self -development, for satisfaction, 
was in the game of money-making, because all the 
world was there. 

And in his hours of recreation he and Lou 
Henry finished the fascinating work of translat- 
ing that old Latin work, ^^Des Res Metallica," and 
published it, as the first complete translation of 
the first book on mining deserved to be published, 
in all the luxury of parchment and vellum, as their 
gift to the literature of mining. 



316 THE MAKING OF 

The one part of his dream that he did not re- 
linquish was the home in California. As soon as 
he could get away from his most pressing work in 

^ the big mining center he was going home. Ever 
since he left China he had maintained his offices 
in San Francisco, and his hotel rooms were always 
waiting for him there, as other rooms waited in 

Shanghai, Melbourne, and New York. He was a 
trustee of Stanford University, busy with plans 
for it, building there the students' club-house that 
he hoped would help to keep Stanford's democracy 
secure against the influence of fraternities, plan- 
ning to make the old Quad again what it had been 
when he was a boy there, a gathering-place for all 
the students in the intervals of class-room work. 

In the spring of 1914, as usual, he was in San 
Francisco. He knew it as he knew all the cities 
of the world, — those knots in the network of in- 
dustry, finance, and politics woven around the 
earth. He knew its tangled affairs, its connec- 
tions with the Orient and with New York and Lon- 
don, its internal conflicts that still expressed in 
violent emotion and melodramatic event the spirit 
of the days of Forty-nine. It was perhaps that 
spirit, — bold and brusk and free despite increas- 
ing wealth and poverty, — that flavor of the pio- 
neer that persisted among banks and factories and 
labor unions, that held him more than the beauty 
of Paris or the picturesqueness of Bombay. 



HERBERT HOOVER 317 

There was the breath of freedom in the salt winds 
driving the white fog over Twin Peaks at the top 
of Market Street; there were dauntlessness and 
daring in the gray buildings that climbed toward 
the sky on every hillside. When from the deck 
of the ferry-boat he saw before him the blue dis- 
tances of San Francisco Bay, the sea-gulls crying 
in the sparkling air, the spreading miles of docks 
and shipping and beyond them the triumphant 
jagged sky-line of the city that had rebuilt itself 
on its own ruins, he knew that he was coming 
home. 

San Francisco was happy in that spring of 1914. 
She was once more the city, gay and debonair, 
that eight years earlier had crumbled in one ter- 
rible dawn into heaps of flaming ruins. The 
banks stood once more on their old sites, renewed 
in walls of fresh marble; the shops were more 
resplendent than before along the wide walks of 
Grant Avenue. If there were still piles of melted 
bricks in the vacant spaces, cracks in the side- 
walks, and ruins where the City Hall had been, 
still the old flower stands at Market and Kearney 
scented the sea-winds with perfume once more 
and the new Chinatown was awake at night with 
colored lanterns and crashing music. There was 
still anxiety in the counting-houses; many a gal- 
lant fagade concealed empty vaults and unpaid 
debts; but San Francisco was rebuilt, and San 



318 THE MAKING OF 

Francisco was celebrating. She planned the 
greatest fair the world had ever known, the most 
fantastically beautiful city of magic, to be built 
by artists for lovers of beauty and mirth. 

No true son of San Francisco could fail to help 
her make her dream come true. Herbert Hoover 
had planned to spend a summer at Stanford, 
whose own walls were being rebuilt on new and 
larger plans ; he had planned to rest on the white 
sand beaches of Monterey and to visit again the 
mountains of Santa Cruz. But San Francisco 
had encountered in Europe an inexplicable reluct- 
ance to join in her holiday. Germany, France, 
England, Spain, invited to send their treasures of 
art and triumphs of manufacture to the fair, hesi- 
tated and delayed their replies. Was this a slight 
put upon San Francisco, — this threatened failure 
to do for her what had been done for Chicago? 
Some one must be sent unofficially to inquire, to 
press the point, to bring the nations of Europe to 
San Francisco's fete in 1915. Herbert Hoover 
was the man to do it. 

He left in June for the quick journey across 
the Atlantic and back. He understood the fears 
at work in England and on the Continent ; but who 
believed, until the fact was there, that in some 
way, at the last moment, the monstrous folly of a 
world war would not be prevented once morel 
The mounting armaments of the nations, the tre- 



HERBERT HOOVER 319 

mendous military forces, the growing tension on 
the meeting frontiers of imperialistic commercial. 
isms, had so long kept the thought of war before 
all Europe that one had grown accustomed to it as 
to a chronic illness, and when the end came it 
brought all the shock of the unexpected. War! 

Herbert Hoover's business interests were in all 
parts of the world. Stockholders of every nation 
were in his companies. His wide, interweaving 
affairs were part of the whole web of international 
credits that makes modem civilization possible 
and that crosses every national frontier. That 
web was abruptly torn across, and everything that 
depended upon it fell into chaos. Credits 
disappeared, stock certificates became pieces of 
paper, currency itself lost its value in the sudden 
instinctive attempts to readjust a complex civil- 
ization to the primitive barbarism of war. 
Checks, drafts, letters of credit, even bank-notes, 
were of no more use than they would have been 
to a man who had suddenly found himself in the 
Middle Ages with his pockets full of them. Gold 
disappeared. 

This was the result of the first shock. It was 
necessary only to hold firm and let it pass. The 
whole machinery of human living could not be 
destroyed in a moment. It was broken in two; 
each half would continue to function, crippled, but 
with wheels flying faster and carrying heavier 



320 THE MAKING OF 

loads. Eeadjustment was necessary, repairs, 
hastily improvised makeshifts for lost parts. But 
the machine would continue to run, because it 
must. 

Had he been a financier, a promoter and spec- 
ulator only, he might have been ruined. But he 
had dealt with actual properties and he held real 
values, values increased by war's insatiable need 
for metals. In this the most serious crisis his 
business affairs had encountered he would need 
to use every energy and every resource of initia- 
tive and intelligence, but he would be able to 
handle it, to protect stock-holders and employees 
and keep the mines going. 

The greatest strain upon his immediate per- 
sonal finances came from the friends and acquaint- 
ances who, escaping penniless across the Channel, 
fell upon him with brief recitals of adventures and 
requests for loans. Dozens, scores, hundreds of 
them, poured through his offices and crowded the 
Bed House, bringing their friends and their 
friends' friends, sure of his help. Strangers 
waylaid him with the simple statement, ^'I 'm an 
American." With the same simplicity he gave 
them money as he had given it to unknown Stan- 
ford students through Lester Hinsdale's hands, 
*^just a loan to help them over the hard places." 
Fifty thousand dollars was taken from his hands 
during that first week of panic in London; his 



HERBERT HOOVER 321 

pockets were full of scrawled I U^s signed by 
strange names, and the necessity of organizing 
first aid to stranded Americans was evident. 

In the American Embassy, where the corridors 
were jammed with distraught citizens and the 
overworked staff could not handle the situation, 
Dr. Page threw up his hands and gave his secre- 
tary Herbert Hoover's telephone number. Some- 
thing must be done; Hoover was the man to do 
it. ' ' All right, I will. See you at six o 'clock. ' ' 

It was a trifling matter or organization, the 
work he had been doing for years. As he had 
paused for a moment in the siege of Tien-Tsin to 
organize a building-and-loan company, so he now 
created time in the midst of his work to organize 
the American relief funds. He and his business m 
friends contributed two hundred thousand dollars 
immediately; the United States Government sent 
another quarter of a million in gold; a floor was 
rented in the Hotel Savoy, a staff was assembled 
and organized. After that it was merely a matter 
of supervision, of keeping the wheels runnino; 
swiftly and smoothly and getting the Americans 
home without red-tape delays. Drafts, letters of 
credit, and checks were cashed, train and steamer 
passages secured, and one hundred thousand 
Americans were moved with precision and des- 
patch through the chaos of London. It was a 
simple matter, hardly more than a detail among 



322 THE MAKING OF 

the many crises he was meeting. For the war was 
not a matter of newspaper head-lines and personal 
emotion to him; a world was going to pieces be- 
neath his feet and all that had made his business 
life was breaking up with it. 

He had built upon organization and order, and 
the great commercial organizations of the earth 
were destroying themselves. He felt the common 
anguish of those terrible days when the stupend- 
ous engines of murder first began their work on 
living human bodies ; he felt, too, the suffering of 
a man who knew that the iron wheels were destroy- 
ing civilization. The energies of Europe were 
turned to destruction, and he knew by what a nar- 
row margin those energies had fed and clothed 
the European peoples from year to year. No vic- 
tory could come from the war, though the Central 
Empires or the Allies imposed the barren peace. 
And in this suffering, while London recovered 
from its first dumb shock to grow hysterical 
around him, he must get together the broken 
pieces of his own work for the clamoring stock- 
holders and anxious employees who depended 
upon him. A certain momentum carried him on 
with the job ; the habit of a lifetime is not changed 
in a moment. There was a relief in concentrating 
oil immediate hard work, for a busy mind deadens 
the emotions. On the other side of the Channel 
the march of the Germans was stopped by the 



HERBERT HOOVER 323 

desperate battle that sent a wave of black across 
England, and the long struggle began. Belgium 
was doomed ; the little nation that he knew so well 
would die, either under the harshness of the Ger- 
man armies or within the iron ring of the English 
blockade. And from Belgium came a cry to him 
for help. 

That appeal from a nation sentenced to starva- 
tion came to him during the most serious crisis 
he had known in his own affairs. The Belgian 
mining engineers who had known him since the 
days in China sent Millard Shaler, an American 
mining engineer, through the enemy lines to beg 
him to save Belgium. It was a question of food 
for seven million persons, men, women and chil- 
dren. A tremendous job. A job that must be 
done quickly and well. Only a mining engineer 
could do it, the Belgians urged, and of mining engi- 
neers Herbert Hoover was the man. It was a 
matter, of course, for diplomatic negotiation. He 
sent Millard Shaler to Dr. Page. 

He understood the situation in Belgium without 
explanation. That nation of towns and factories 
was like a city; cut off from communication with 
agricultural countries it would starve in two 
months. Under normal conditions it imported 
seventy-five per cent, of its grains and fifty per 
cent, of its other foods. Now the march of the 
German armies had brought it within the block- 



324 THE MAKING OF 

ade; Germany, herself in a state of siege, and 
hoarding food, would not share her supplies with 
the angry people who had prevented her trium- 
phal entry into Paris. Neither would she let them 
import gold to pay for food from neutral coun- 
tries, even though the Allies would relax the block- 
ade on food for Belgians. 

Seven million persons. Peaceful, hard-working 
civilians caught between the armies. To feed 
them under normal conditions would be the big- 
gest commissary job in history, a task greater 
than feeding the armies of the Allies. To do it 
now would involve all the tangle of diplomacy be-, 
tween England and Germany and neutral Amer- 
ica. It seemed impossible. 

But the starvation of seven million hostages in 
conquered territory also was impossible. A Bel- 
gian delegation was passed through the German 
lines to carry Germany's otfer to England. The 
Germans held Antwerp and the whole of Belgium 
with all her food. Germany was blockaded. She 
would feed the Belgians if England would lift the 
blockade. 

England replied that she would not lift the 
blockade. Under The Hague Conference rules 
Germany was bound to feed the Belgians. Let 
her do it. 

Germany offered an alternative. She would 
Xjermit America to send food to Belgium through 



HERBERT HOOVER 325 

Holland with the Allies' consent, provided that 
the work was done entirely by Americans under 
German surveillance. The Allies gave their per- 
mission, and Dr. Page sent for Herbert Hoover. 

He was asked to give up the work of his lifetime. 
He was asked to give it up in a crisis that would 
mean the loss of nearly the whole of his fortune. 
It is not so easy to begin again at forty. All that 
the years had taught him of self-interest and per- 
sonal ambition was against his accepting the re- 
sponsibility for feeding Belgium. After all, 
there were other engineers. 

Dr. Page insisted that he was the one American 
with the ability and the knowledge of Europe that 
the work demanded. The Belgian delegation en- 
dorsed the opinion, converging upon him the in- 
tensity of their reliance on him and the despair of 
a dying nation. 

^* Gentlemen, you are asking me to give up not 
only my own fortune but a responsibility to my 
stock-holders. I must have time to think it over.* 
Give me two days." 

He went home to the Red House to talk it over 
with Lou Henry. It was not a decision to be 
easily made. He knew the difficulties of the work, 
the endless heartbreaking compHcations that he 
would have to meet day after day in handling a 
task of such delicacy between Germany and Eng- 
land. He knew what he must give up, both for 



326 THE MAKING OF 

himself and for wife and sons. The fruits of 
twenty years' hard work, all that he had striven 
toward since the old days at Stanford. The lead 
and silver mines of Burma, that had only that sum- 
mer justified his belief by revealing ore of almost 
incredible richness, and that were still to be de- 
veloped. And all the other plans and projects he 
had formulated or begun to carry out. 

Lou Henry met the question seriously and with 
understanding. He was offered an opportunity 
to do a big humanitarian task. An entire nation 
with all its women and little children was starv- 
ing; no personal consideration could enter into the 
question of trjdng to save them. If he could do 
the work, if he could arrange to leave his business 
without ruining others, he ought to do it. 

He walked the length of his room and back all 
that night, his hands in liis pockets, his head bent, 
thinking; ranging methodically in order all the 
arguments on each side, as he had done long before 
in choosing between geology and mining. The 
seven million human beings that he might be able 
to save were a factor that nothing could balance.* 
It was after all the kind of work that he had 
wished to do, and he must take it when it came. 

There was no need for melodrama about the 
thing. It was a big job, that was all; and in its 
essentials, aside from its diplomatic aspects, it 
was the kind of work he had been doing for fifteen 



HERBERT HOOVER 327 

years. The thing to do was to get at it. He saw 
Dr. Page at the American Embassy and announced 
his decision: ^^Well, I guess I Ve got to let the 
fortune go to blazes. I 'm going to take the Bel- 
gian job." 

Then he resigned from all his mining companies 
and went to work. The sensation in the City was 
lost in the storm of greater emotions sweeping 
England. Presidents, directors, and managers, 
in a panic, begged him to reconsider, urged him 
as a neutral American to stay out of the war and 
help them with their difficulties, called him mad 
to wreck himself in that fashion. He stood smil- 
ing, his hands gripped hard in his pockets, friendly 
and immovable. They could carry on without 
him. If they wanted his opinion at any time they 
could come around for it; he would do anything 
he could. But he had taken the Belgian job and 
he would have time for nothing else. He was 
through with mining. '' I 'm going in for the 
world's biggest wholesale grocery job,'' he said. 

The Commission for the Relief of Belgium was 
exactly that. But food, as a factor in organiza- 
tion, is only a commodity, so much material to be 
purchased, transported, and delivered. He had 
been buying and handling not only food but ma- 
chinery, lumber, fuel, all the innumerable mate- 
rials necessary for building mining camps, rail- 
ways, and mills in the far places of the earth. He 



328 THE MAKING OF 

understood organization, both as a technical prob- 
lem and as an intricate interlacing of human rela- 
tionships. Men liked him and liked one another 
when they worked together for him. 

He stood in a position unique in history, — an 
individual with no authority but his own, dealing 
with all the nations of a world at war. As an 
individual, he was able to act quickly and deci- 
sively. When he became chairman of the C. E. B. 
just fourteen days stood between Belgium and 
starvation and every obstacle bureaucracy could 
oppose to him stood in the way of his getting food 
into trains, into ships, out of harbors, and across 
the patrolled and mine-infested Channel. He 
overcame the obstacles by ignoring them, and the 
Belgians had the food before he had all the neces- 
sary permissions to send it. It was his way of 
working, for like his pioneer ancestors he saw no 
use for an organization that destroyed individual- 
ism and had no respect for the attitude of mind 
in which the means to an end become an end in 
themselves. The basis of his organizations was 
that combination of authority and democracy that 
was the Quaker village spread around the earth 
as a commercial machine. As the controlling head 
of the men who were feeding an entire nation, he 
expected them also to apply individual initiative 
and intelligence to their immediate problems and 
he gave them room in which to do it. He had 



HERBERT HOOVER 329 

become the king of an unofficial government that 
extended itself around the earth ; he was in abso- 
lute control of it and carried the responsibility for 
all its acts, and he decentralized the authority so 
completely that no man in it was entangled in red- 
tape. The freedom they felt and the obligation 
upon them to produce results, enlisted for him 
the energy and enthusiasm of men who work for 
themselves and the efficiency of men who work 
together for a common purpose. The group of 
able and loyal men who gathered around him was 
one of the few joys he knew in those days so 
harassed by anxieties. White, Hunsiker, Rickard, 
Lucey, Graff, Honnald, Shaler, and Polland, the 
biggest American mining engineers, gave them- 
selves as wholeheartedly to the work he directed 
as he did, and in two months the C. R. B. was 
pouring food through Holland into Belgium. 

The work divided itself into ^ve parts, all si- 
multaneously presenting innumerable difficulties 
of detail, — buying, transporting, and delivering 
the food, financing the work, and keeping open the 
diplomatic channels all along the way. He was a 
trained buyer and he knew the world's markets; 
his buyers were in America, Argentine, India, and 
China, and a mind schooled for years in stock- 
exchanges directed their adventurous careers. 
The markets had gone mad; the stability of food 
prices had vanished with the international com- 



330 THE MAKING OF 

merce that made it; wheat, no longer dependent 
on Liverpool quotations and caught in harbors 
without ships, was a rolling ball on a gambler's 
roulette table ; sugar in Hawaii and pork in Kan- 
sas and beans in Manchuria leaped and fell with 
the breath of rumor in Chicago. Buying for the 
C. E. B. was a juggler's game, needing a shrewd 
eye and a quick hand, and at his desk in London 
he played it for the life of Belgium. When wheat 
was high in Argentine he was buying rice in Ean- 
goon ; just before it rained in Havana he got sugar 
in the Philippines. He never bought on a falling 
market, and he caught it before it turned. Mak- 
ing the C. R. B. 's amazing record for shrewd buy- 
ing would have been an hilarious game if he had 
not been too busy for jubilation and too weary for 
excitement. 

There was the constant question of getting 
ships, charters, convoys, barges. The food came 
overseas from South America and through the 
Suez Canal for China, then across the Channel 
infested with floating mines into the harbor at 
Rotterdam, where it was unloaded into a flock of 
barges that moved through the canals of Holland 
into Belgium. Seventy ships sailed the seas 
under the flag of the C. R. B., and five hundred 
barges met them at Rotterdam and had their own 
renewed troubles in getting' through the German 
lines at the Dutch frontier. They were the barges 



HERBERT HOOVER 331 

of the C. R. B., and who was the C. R. B.? Her- 
bert Hoover, one man in no official position with 
any government. 

Germany looked on him and his men with sus- 
picion, as possible spies and quite probably Allied 
sympathizers. German military officers opposed 
the soft-hearted charity of feeding Belgium. Let 
the Belgian civilians suffer with Germany inside 
an unbroken blockade and they would take up the 
German cause and help defeat the Allies. Eng- 
lish naval officers believed that the C. R. B. was 
prolonging the war that had brought death into 
nearly every English family. Maintain the 
blockade unbroken, they urged. Let Belgium 
starve. Either the Belgians would rise in last 
desperate revolts that would cripple the work of 
the German Army, or Germany would feed them 
and thus bring more quickly her own starvation 
and collapse. 

He was feeding the Belgians, and he did it 
against a hundred conflicting currents of opposi- 
tion. Every day was a crisis. The Germans 
would not let the barges out of Belgium into Hol- 
land unless five thousand dollars was deposited 
for each one, to guarantee its return. He crossed 
the mined Channel at night, in a boat darkened to 
escape submarines, and settled that point without 
yielding it. His men were arrested here, hindered 
there, working under the constant watchfulness 



332 THE MAKING OF 

of enemies. A dozen times the Germans threat- 
ened to end the whole thing by driving the C. E. 
B. out of Belgium. He came and went between 
London, Brussels, and Paris, the one man passing 
through the lines from French to German to Eng- 
lish headquarters, never betraying confidences, 
trusted even while he was hated. In the center 
of the melee of changing policies in governments 
at war he fought an endless series of fights, with 
the Germans, the English, the French, even mth 
the Belgians. First and last and constantly he 
kept his self-control. He did not let his temper 
loose; he did not speak a word not considered 
carefully before he uttered it; he kept his emo- 
tions under guard. His brain was in charge, hard 
and efficient as a machine. And he was terribly 
tired. 

The work must be financed. Northern France 
had been swallowed by the German aimies. Two 
million, five hundred thousand more mouths to 
feed. The C. E. B. was selling its supplies to 
those able to pay for them, turning the profits into 
its charity fund for those who had nothing. 
Every week that leveling-down process brought 
more thousands into the bread-lines. In the most 
highly industrialized country of Europe hardly a 
wheel was turning ; the factories stood empty ; no 
one had work or wages, and their only food came 
through the C. E. B. The business had grown to 



HERBERT HOOVER 333 

a total of twelve million dollars a month, sup- 
ported by charity and by unofficial contributions 
from governments. The money was sent simply 
to him, Herbert C. Hoover. Those hundreds of 
millions passing constantly through his personal 
bank-account were guarded by nothing but his 
own integrity, which to all the governments of 
Europe was a security as sound as a government 
bond. In accepting that money he accepted the 
entire responsibility for its honest and efficient 
handling. It was a point at which the slightest 
error would have left him open to the attacks of 
his enemies. He guarded against that danger by 
having his accounts double-audited and certified 
by both English and French accountants, and to 
prevent a single penny of that money from com- 
ing to him he not only accepted no salary but 
paid even his traveling expenses himself. But the 
care of the C. R. B. funds was on his shoulders, 
and as the cost of feeding Belgium grew greater 
than his resources he was in the position of the 
head of an enormous business that every day 
faced bankruptcy. It became at last a question 
of raising money on Belgian assets from sources 
outside that imprisoned country. He encountered 
the refusal of Germany to give up the riches she 
had taken by force of arms, the declaration of the 
Belgians that they would rather starve than ac- 
cept any concessions from their conquerors, and 



334 THE MAKING OF 

the financial panics of the rest of the war-ravaged 
world. The greatest financiers in the City told 
him that he was attempting the impossible. But 
it must be done. Through, a succession of plans 
that were broken and thwarted and altered, re- 
assembling his resources, meeting objections, 
arguing, fighting with tenacity and desperation^ 
he did it. The achievement in ordinary times 
would have made him a king of financiers ; it was 
accomplished in the turmoil when the efforts of 
giants were overshadowed by more gigantic forces. 
He had the money to keep the C. R. B. going; it 
was one fight finished to make room for another, 
without time between them for rest or breathing 
space. 

Verdun, — and the French Government in that 
terrific strain upon all her strength contemplated 
abandoning the C. E. B. Officially the French had 
never contributed to the feeding of her two and a 
half million people beyond the German lines ; offi- 
cially she stood firm on The Hague Conference 
rules and demanded that Germany feed them. 
Secretly, however, the French treasury sent Her- 
bert C. Hoover twelve and a half million francs 
every month, receiving in return merely his per- 
sonal receipts. Now a faction in the government 
demanded that those payments cease. All France 
was hungry; all France was suffering, straining 
with her last energies against the enemy at Ver- 



HERBERT HOOVER 335 

dun. Beyond the lines two and a half million 
French people were fed and quiet under the polic- 
ing of German soldiers. Let them starve, and 
they would revolt inside the enemy territory; 
their ultimate futile desperation might shake Ger- 
many's grip just sufficient to enable France to 
hold Verdun. 

Herbert Hoover hastened for the hundredth 
time across the Channel to Paris. He knew that 
such reasoning was false ; he knew the true situa- 
tion in Germany. The things he knew could not be 
told ; he was a neutral given the freedom of both 
camps, bound in honor to betray neither by one 
unwary word or glance. The French must ac- 
cept much on his unsupported statement; they 
must be made to accept it, for the lives of two and 
a half million of their own people hung on its 
acceptance. 

He came back to London with that point won; 
he had defeated the efforts of the French military 
party and France would continue to help the C. 
R. B. Another crisis had arisen within Germany ; 
again the German militarists were about to end 
their vexations by sending the C. R. B. out 
of their conquered territory. German General 
Headquarters was enraged by the false reports 
of atrocities sweeping the neutral countries. 
Guarded as the C. R. B. men were in every word 
and gesture, every one knew where their sympa- 



336 THE MAKING OF 

thies lay. Throw them out, the generals insisted ; 
let Germans handle the Belgians. They would 
teach them submission behind barbed-wire fences 
in concentration camps. Germany was starving; 
why should Belgium be fed? Hoover raced again 
across the Channel in a darkened torpedo boat 
and rushed to Brussels. 

^^Mark Twain said that life was just one damn 
thing after another. Maybe he was right then; 
nowadays life is all of 'em at once/' they said in 
C. R. B. headquarters in London. And for the 
twentieth time they gave the English proofs that 
none of the C. R. B. food was falling into German 
hands. 

The distribution of the food was one of the 
simplest parts of the work, thanks to the chief's 
democratic theories of organization. Down to the 
smallest village, the actual problems of distribu- 
tion were in the hands of local Belgian agents 
working under the Belgian Comite Nationale. It 
was their task to meet at first hand the sutfering 
of their people ; that was one thing that the chief 
could not do. He had seen the children of Ant- 
werp in the bread-lines, and never again was he 
present at such scenes. These were emotions that 
he could not endure and continue to do his work. 
He repulsed bruskly the sympathetic women who 
wished to thank him for the noble work he was 
doing for those poor women and children who 



HERBERT HOOVER 337 

were suffering so terribly ; he would not talk about 
it. 

**I remember the whole thing as one long fight 
without rounds,'^ he said when it ended in the 
spring of 1917, and Lou Henry found one glimpse 
of sunshine for him in the gloom: *^ Perhaps now 
you will be able to meet your, family again. It 's 
really a very nice family, you know. ' ^ 

The ends of the C. R. B. work were neatly gath- 
ered up. A business turning over billions of 
dollars in two years, with an overhead of one half 
of one per cent. It was finished now, cleared 
away, all accounts rendered. Herbert Hoover 
and his family sailed at once for America. Presi- 
dent Wilson, urged by Dr. Page to make Herbert 
Hoover Director of Munitions, had sent for him to 
take the food control of the United States. 

Washington, again, in the springtime, with the 
green trees bursting into leaf in all the parks and 
squares, magnolias on the White House lawn, and 
the placid Potomac mirroring the woods upon her 
banks. Washington roused like an angry beehive, 
its streets crowded with strangers, its air rever- 
berating to the sound of hammers and saws ; aero- 
planes roaring above the Washington Monument ; 
wireless towers sputtering their crackling electric 
messages. Government departments expanding, 
multiplying, spreading into scores of new wooden 
and concrete buildings, crowding into hotels and 



338 THE MAKING OF 

old apartment houses where typewriters and filing- 
cases stood beside fireplaces and bath-tubs. 
Washington, an old political organization, sud- 
denly becoming a conglomeration of enormous 
economic machinery, centralized as the old poli- 
tics had been and trying to carry efficiently the 
heaviest economic load in history. 

In two hundred years America had grown like 
Topsy. On the simple individualistic democracy 
of the pioneer the coming of the machines had 
imposed the inevitable industrial autocracies of 
corporations and labor unions. The era of organ- 
ization had evolved with them; an organization 
that, founded on the undisputed autocratic right 
of a man over his own property, had developed 
on autocratic lines and become an increasing dele- 
gation of power from individuals to a superior. 
Stockholders delegated authority to directors and 
presidents; organized workers gave their power 
to ele'cted representatives. Capital and Labor 
were two tremendous autocratic organizations, 
meeting only at the point of greatest antagonism. 
Agriculture, still in the hands of farmers who 
cherished the old individualistic democracy, was 
the victim of both. It remained far behind its, 
possibilities of development, hampered by loss of 
labor to the cities, by lack of any adequate machin- 
ery of capitalization, by the elTorts of labor to 
raise wages which resulted in mounting costs of 



HERBERT HOOVER 339 

manufactured articles, and by the efforts of cap- 
ital to make profits which resulted in low prices 
for farm products. Politics, founded on the idea 
of a democracy of individuals, and confronted by 
the facts of autocratic economic and political or- 
ganization, struggled hopelessly to reconcile the 
two and was lost in a brawl of conflicting interests. 

America had now entered the war and Herbert 
Hoover was in charge of her food-production and 
export. A product of the pioneer forces that had 
made the nation, he had gone out into the wide 
world twenty years earlier carrying with him the 
essential qualities of Americanism. Now the na- 
tion itself was following the footsteps of those 
world pioneers of whom he had been one. Amer- 
ica had conquered a continent and become a na- 
tion ; now she was giving her strength to the world 
conflict. 

Herbert Hoover inherited a chaos. The agri- 
culture of the United States had continued to feed 
its people only because of the tremendous natural 
resources of a new country; for fifty years its 
farming had been slowly deteriorating, unchecked 
by any but the feeblest political efforts. Tenant 
farming was increasing; farm mortgages were 
bleeding the producers with high rates of interest ; 
the cost of farm machinery had steadily risen and 
the supply of farm labor steadily decreased. The 
war in Europe had flung confusion into the mar- 



340 THE MAKING OF 

kets and gamblers were plundering agriculture as 
thieves loot a burning city. Wheat was worth 
$1.44 on the farms ; $3.25 on the Chicago gambling 
table; double that in the flour-barrel. Stock- 
growers were selling calves because they could not 
profit by raising them; the urban middle classes 
were eating less meat because they could not af- 
ford to buy it. 

Not only the winning of the war but the feeding 
of Americans, and after them the populations of 
Europe, depended upon the director of the Food 
Administration in Washington. Hoover knew 
how narrow was the margin of hope, because he 
knew more intimately than any other American 
the actual situation of all the nations at war. He 
must stabilize and increase America's food-pro- 
duction, decrease her consumption, and squeeze 
out between them a larger exportation of food 
than in normal times, and he must do it immedi- 
ately. 

He began at once by creating a decentralized 
organization, an organization based on a theory 
opposed to that of all American political and eco- 
nomic organization. Twenty years in the affairs 
of the world had not altered his belief in individ- 
ualistic democracy ; absolute authority was in his 
hands as Food Administrator, and he delegated 
that authority downward as rapidly as possible. 
It was the plan he had followed in his mining 



HERBERT HOOVER 341 

career; it was the plan he had used in Belgium. 
He delegated his authority to the State Food Ad- 
ministrators, through them to county organiza- 
tions, and beyond them to the American individual. 
Then he began his tremendous campaign of pub- 
licity. It was the Quaker village once more ap- 
plied to huge affairs, the principles of free discus- 
sion and individual responsibility. He believed 
in humanity; he rested half his load upon his 
faith in the righteousness and the power of fully 
informed individuals acting freely. Twelve out 
of twenty million homes in America responded to 
his belief, and sixty million Americans were vol- 
untarily pledged to follow his instructions for 
saving food. 

The problem of production and distribution was 
more difficult. He encountered there the funda- 
mental selfishness of men who see their property 
attacked, and the desperation of men working for 
self-preservation. He had to deal with gamblers 
who clutched their winnings and with farmers to 
whom the war had brought their first hope of 
prosperity, and he had to mend and alter and keep 
running the whole intricate machinery of Amer- 
ica's food-supply that for two hundred years had 
never been controlled by any central intelligence 
or justice. He began, under the Food Control Act 
of August, 1917, by instituting a system of licens- 
ing handlers of food products who did a business 



342 THE MAKING OF 

of more than a hundred thousand dollars a year, 
and by guaranteeing farmers a minimum price of 
two dollars a bushel for 1918 wheat. 

But the winning of the w^ar for the Allies de- 
pended upon the immediate response of the indi- 
vidual Americans to whom he had appealed. Upon 
them he rested all his hope. Despite desperate 
urging to institute in this crisis a system of food- 
rationing and food-cards he still relied upon the 
action of free individuals. His campaign of pub- 
licity continued; his instructions went out to 
American housewives. In the last analysis it was 
they who must win the Avar. Prohibition, policing, 
autocratic authority, however used, Avould not 
avail against a people who would not voluntarily 
respond to his appeals. One reason, if reasons 
were demanded, was that there was not time to 
use such methods. In January, 1918, &ve months 
after he became Director of the American Food 
Administration, Lord Rhondda, the English Food 
Controller, saw the last hope gone. He laid down 
his hand and said in effect to the British War 
Council : * ^ Gentlemen, we are through. The Allies 
have lost the war. ' ^ 

His cablegram to Herbert Hoover w^as already 
in the office of the Food Administrator in Wash- 
ington. ''Unless you are able to send the Allies 
at least seventy-five million bushels of wheat over 
and above what you have exported up to January 



HERBERT HOOVER 343 

first and in addition to the total exportable surplus 
from Canada I cannot take the responsibility of 
assuring our people that there will be food enough 
to win the war. Imperative necessity compels me 
to cable you in this blunt way. No one knows bet- 
ter than I do that the American people, regardless 
of national and individual sacrifice, have so far 
refused nothing that is needed for the war, but it 
now lies with America to decide whether or not 
the Allies in Europe shall have enough bread to 
hold out until the United States is able to throw 
its force into the war. ' ' 

This was the anxiety that Herbert Hoover car- 
ried with him, underlying all the anxieties and 
battles of that winter. The 1917 wheat crop had 
been poor ; the United States had barely enough 
grain for its own normal consumption. He was 
embroiled in difficulties with millers, bakers, and 
middlemen ; he was charged with disorganizing all 
normal business by the activities of his new grain- 
administration, by his entry into the market as a 
coordinator of supplies for the Allies. He was in 
reality trying at once to save the farmer from 
the effects of speculation and extortion, to stabil- 
ize prices and prevent wild gambling and panic, 
and in the face of the world's shortage of grain 
and ships to get enough wheat to Europe to save 
the Allies without undernourishing the American 
people. By July he had sent ten million more 



344 THE MAKING OF 

bushels of wheat than Lord Rhondda had asked 
for, and the crisis was past. 

After that, the strain of the work was less. It 
was a matter of organization and reorganization 
only, and carrying the load of the Food Adminis- 
tration was rest after the terrific labors of the C. 
R. B. and the first months in Washington. He, 
had authority from Congress to go into the mar- 
kets as a buyer, and he organized the United 
States Grain Corporation that by skilful manoeu- 
vering kept up the price of wheat and held dowTi 
the price of flour. In his office it was a matter of 
percentages ; in 1910 the farmers had been getting 
27 per cent., the millers 6I/2 per cent., the middle- 
men and bakers 66y2 per cent, of the price of 
bread. In 1915 the proportions had been 30, 11, 
and 59. With the Grain Corporation and Food 
Administration in the field the farmers got 40 per 
cent.; the millers 3 per cent., and the middlemen 
and bakers 57 per cent. And the margin between 
producer and consumer had been cut from $11.00 
to $3.50 per barrel of flour. Those figures, sel- 
dom known and never intelligently considered by 
the American people, were nevertheless of the 
greatest importance to the prosperity of every 
farmer who plowed a field and to the health of 
every child whose mother gave it a piece of bread 
and butter. The altering of those figures was 
Herbert Hoover's task and he did it anxiously and 



HERBERT HOOVER 345 

with care because he felt the human values they 
represented. But he did it, because he must, by 
methods repugnant to him. The autocracy he 
was compelled to use in the Food Administration 
was against all his convictions ; he did not believe 
that such economic control was the proper pro- 
vince of government. It was necessary in the 
emergency of the war, but just and efficient con- 
trol of food-supplies was properly a matter for 
the people themselves to undertake. 

Out of the activities of the Food Administration 
grew many related problems of organization. He 
formed an alliance between his department and 
the War Trade Board and Shipping Board to 
control exports and provide a further check on the 
possibility of panic at home. He centralized and 
coordinated the food purchases of the Allies, the 
neutral countries, the American Army, Navy, and 
Red Cross, in order that the food might be pro- 
portioned in relation to the supply and the need 
for it. His Division of Coordination of Purchase 
considered and approved every shipment of food- 
stuffs from America. 

But this work, important as it was to the Allies 
and to every American, and filled with anxieties 
and crises, was not so exhausting as the C. R. B. 
had been. He was at work ten and twelve and 
fourteen hours a day, but on Sundays he was able 
to relax and to store up in hours of delightful busy 



346 THE MAKING OF 

idleness the energy he needed. Every Sunday 
morning he and Lou Henry and the boys piled 
lunch-baskets and rugs into an automobile and 
went out into the country. Clerks and secretaries 
and heads of departments from the Food Admin- 
istration went with them, and somewhere in Vir- 
ginia or Maryland, at an inviting shady place 
beside a stream, they parked their cars, spread 
their rugs, and played. The children waded, the 
girls picked flowers. Herbert Hoover cast an 
engineer's eyes upon the scene and, choosing an 
interesting spot, rolled up his sleeves and built 
dams, canals, and miniature power-plants where 
tiny streams of water turned wheels of twigs. 
His hands were covered with mud, and the sun 
was warm on his back. The boys hung about him, 
enthralled. He explained engineering problems 
of the past and future, in the Sierras, Egypt, 
Eussia. They knelt together in the mud and tried 
to make water run up hill. Appetites bit sharply 
at them before the camp fire was going nicely and 
they sniffed the perfume of frying chicken mingled 
with the scent of the summer woods. Hoover ate 
like a boy, sitting cross-legged, a brown-bread 
sandwich in one hand, a chicken bone in the other. 
His mind was wiped clean of all its cares. 

*'Send you to Europe? Not while you can fry 
chicken like this!'' And, lying on the rug, he 
lighted the mild cigar that was his one dissipation 



HEEBERT HOOVER 347 

and smoked it with slow enjoyment, watching the 
sunshine through the leaves, until he fell asleep 
and Mrs. Hoover, lifting a warning hand above 
his head, sent the children to play farther down 
the creek. 

There was in those Sunday holidays an epitome 
of the man Herbert Hoover. As a great name, 
as a great chief of organization, he moved through 
two hemispheres, changing the currents of history 
and the lives of millions. His name itself had 
become a verb incorporated in the English lan- 
guage. Behind the shelter of his fame he re- 
mained essentially the human being created by 
the forces that had created America, — simple, 
practical, active, finding his rest from work in 
other work, and at home with the forests and 
streams that had been the environment of his 
pioneer ancestors as he was at home in their ideals 
and their ideology. 

This was the man who, when the war ended in 
the tears and wreckage of Europe, went back 
across the Atlantic with the strength of America 
behind him, to enter a new epoch in the world's 
history. 

The old civilization, broken and mangled by the 
war, was staggering under a load it could not 
carry. In the ruins of autocratic organizations 
the white peoples of the earth, desperate, starving, 
faced the enigmatic future. The world they had 



348 THE MAKING OF 

known had been shattered beneath their feet ; they 
struggled among the fragments, clinging to them, 
throwing them away, trying to find foothold, try- 
ing to build again some stability for their children. 

Eussia, the first nation to go to pieces, dreamed 
amid blood and terror of a new earth, of an indus- 
trial civilization unlike any that had been known. 
Beyond the smoke of battles and of darker rumors 
a handful of men in Moscow were trying to apply 
to the complexities of huge organizations the prin- 
ciple of communism in which human society began. 
What they were doing no one knew ; the story of 
what they hoped to do came down from the north 
on every wind. 

Germany was still in the grip of the British 
blockade. Her people, exhausted by the war, 
overwhelmed by the incredible fact that the Ger-. 
man Army was defeated, and starved behind the 
inexorable barrier of English ships, swayed like 
crowds in a panic. They had fought for their 
emperor to the limit of their strength, and they 
were hungry. They had yielded to the victorious 
enemy, and they were hungry. They had over- 
turned the German throne, and still they were 
hungry. German machine-guns in the streets of 
Berlin watched those hungry people. 

What Herbert Hoover had expected in the old 
C. R. B. days had occurred. He knew the food 
resources of Germany ; he had estimated that they 



HEEBEET HOOVEE 349 

would not last beyond April, 1919. He knew that 
the hunger of the people would become starvation 
then. When he landed in Europe as a member of 
the peace mission he knew that unless the Eng- 
lish blockade was lifted before April the German 
people would see on the winds blowing down from 
Eussia their only sparks of hope. Machine-guns 
would not hold them then, nor save the rest of 
Europe. 

Germany was asking for food, begging for food. 
She had gold to pay for it. But the gold was 
wanted for indemnities and reparation funds. 
There were meetings in London, conferences in 
Paris; intrigues and counter-intrigues between 
governments, between factions in governments; 
arguments, counter-arguments, floods of publicity, 
tiled reports. Still the English blockade held. 
The masses in Germany were moving. Barri- 
cades and blood and powder smoke in the streets 
of Berlin. Noske holding the people quiet with 
bayonets, and their hunger growing. 

In January Herbert Hoover put the situation 
squarely before the Council of Four. He had the 
facts on Germany ^ 'ood-supply, on the strength 
of the Spartacist movement in Germany, on the 
unrest through all Europe. He got the order 
lifting the English blockade. Then he attacked 
the multiplying obstacles in the way of getting the 
food through. To bring English and Germans 



350 THE MAKING OF 

together, to arrange financial agreements and 
transfers, to reconcile hatreds and opposing inter- 
ests, was a matter of weeks prolonged into months. 
Within Germany Noske held control from day to 
day; hunger had become famine. The situation 
could not last beyond April. 

In March the last negotiation was completed at 
Brussels. Herbert Hoover was there to put it 
through; he was free now to ship the food from 
America. But he had not waited for that; the 
food was already on the seas, bound for Hamburg. 
Four days after the Brussels meeting the first 
shipment of wheat and fats was in Germany. It 
was his first victory against the forces pulling all 
Europe toward the solution offered by Russia. 

Chief of the American Relief Administration 
and member of the Supreme Economic Council, he 
held a power greater than emperors had dreamed 
of; and he used it quietly, steadily, effectively, to 
put out > the smoldering brands of revolution 
wherever a spark showed. He saw the task of re- 
organization before the world, and he saw the 
solution of its problems in an individualistic de- 
mocracy founded on the right of each man to 
use his initiative in the acquiring of property and 
the shaping of his own life. He saw in commun- 
ism not only the immediate danger of violent up- 
heavals, of death and destruction and a further 
breaking down of international economic organiza- 



HERBERT HOOVER 351 

tion, but beyond them a false step in human prog- 
ress. Society rested upon the individual, not 
upon the community. The right function of gov- 
ernment was not economic; government should 
exercise upon the individual the smallest possible 
control consistent with its duty of insuring each 
individual his right to live, to acquire possessions, 
to enjoy political liberty and to pursue happiness. 
He saw the failures and weaknesses and crimes of 
governments, but he believed that political prob- 
lems were best solved by democratic republics and 
economic injustices corrected by a decentraliza- 
tion of organization. 

Therefore communism had in him a most thor- 
ough and efficient enemy. He fought it with a 
weapon that in those months of doubt and anguish 
was the strongest force in Europe,— food. 

The United States has put into his hands as 
chief of the American Relief Administration one 
hundred million dollars. It was one cupful of 
water with which to put down the fires of revolu- 
tion leaping everywhere among the ruins of Eu- 
rope. Russia was a blaze on the horizon ; Germany 
still smoldered; Austria-Hungary, the once soUd 
barrier between Europe and Asia, had been broken 
into kindling heaps of fuel; Italy flickered with 
little flames; France was smoking; England was 
beating out the sparks in Clyde and Belfast. 
Once out of control, the roaring conflagration 



352 THE MAKING OF 

would have burned away the wreckage of the 
world's old civilization. 

It must be saved. The only way to save it was 
to rebuild from the fragments a solid economic 
structure that would resist the flames. While, 
around the Council of Four in Paris, all the gov- 
ernments argued questions of mandates, of Shan- 
tung, Fiume, the Saar basin, the protectorate over 
Asia Minor, the indemnities from Germany, the 
reparation funds, Herbert Hoover was quietly, 
steadily at work laying the foundations of a new 
economic Europe, from the German borders to the 
Black Sea and the Caspian. He was rebuilding 
it in spite of broken-down transportation, indus- 
tries destroyed, the changing political boundaries 
of states, the innumerable small wars ravaging 
Central Europe. With railroads out of commis- 
sion, factories silent, armies burning and pillaging, 
and new barriers of hatred and greed rising every- 
where, his men were reconstructing the old com- 
mercial unity of Central Europe. Austrian ma- 
chinery for Galacian oil and Croatian pork; Ru- 
manian oil for Hungarian wheat; grain in Jugo- 
slavia for steel in Vienna, Polish potatoes for 
Czech sugar, Czech coal for Budapest machines, 
they bargained and traded and got the goods 
through despite hindering diplomacy, red-tape, 
looting soldiers, and political boundaries never 
twice the same. They were feeding the people 



HERBEET HOOVER 353 

and saving the governments. They got the goods 
through, an American on every train. 

Meantime Hungary went communist. Bela 
Kun and the Soviets were on the old throne of the 
Hapsburgs, and in hungry Vienna the life of the 
Austrian Government was a matter of days. Aus- 
trian generals saw with horror that when the 
crisis came they would not be able to control their 
own troops. There was a communist revolt in 
Munich. If the whole of Austria-Hungary went, 
Czecho-Slovakia would follow, and Germany, 
Italy, even France might go. 

It was Herbert Hoover in Paris and his man 
Captain Gregory on the ground who made the 
counter-revolution in Budapest, made it with their 
tremendous power of food-control and a skilful 
handling of the political situation. Bela Kun and 
the Soviets fell; Vienna was held in a firm grip 
with American relief and American soldiers; 
Czecho-Slovakia stood firm, and Europe was kept 
from communism. 

Herbert Hoover was not able to keep the 
Rumanian armies from helpless Hungary. The 
swing of the pendulum, carrying past the republic 
at which he had aimed, swung Archduke Joseph 
upon the throne of his Hapsburg ancestors. It 
was Herbert Hoover who flung him off it again ; 
Herbert Hoover white-faced with fury in the 
Council of Four and coldly determined at the end 



354 THE MAKING OF 

of the telegraph wire that reached to Captain 
Gregory in Budapest. Americans would not per- 
mit communism; they would not tolerate for a 
moment the reactionary kingdom of the hated 
Hapsburg. The Archduke Joseph followed Bela 
Kun, and the cheerful voice of America was in 
the telegram that announced his downfall: 

Hoover, Paris. 

Archie went through the hoop at eight o 'clock to-night. 
/ ' Gregory. 

The American Eelief Administration ended 
with the end of those fearful months in which the 
Council of Four discussed behind closed doors the 
map of Europe; in which governments and fac- 
tions intrigued, plotted, counter-plotted, fought 
for the spoils of a wrecked world; in which the 
European peoples, disillusioned, despairing, 
bleeding under the tread of armies and starving 
among silent factories, quivered toward a stam- 
pede that would have destroyed every remnant of 
the old regime. It was a turmoil from which, 
having done what it could to stay the forces of 
destruction, having helped to lay the foundations 
for a renewal of construction, the American Ee- 
lief Administration withdrew. 

There was only one task in Europe that it did 
not relinquish, — the effort toward insuring that 



HERBERT HOOVER 355 

the white races in Europe would live to make their 
own future. Their children were dying; the com- 
ing generations had been fed into the war fur- 
naces. Crippled, wizen, twisted by suffering and 
hunger into figures that were a terror rather than 
a hope, they must be fed and mended and made 
strong enough to take up the burden of the new 
century. From the profits of the Relief Admin- 
istration its chief had saved enough to give them 
milk and medicines, and this work he continued 
from his offices in New York. It was the only 
remaining charity that the United States Govern- 
ment gave to the peoples of Europe. 

America faced her ovm problems of recon- 
struction at home and enterprise abroad. It was 
in helping to meet those problems that Herbert 
Hoover would make his own future. He returned 
to his own country, which in spirit he had never 
left, and he brought back to her enriched by world 
experience those qualities of character and mmd 
that two hundred years earlier had made her a 
nation,— courage, honesty, energy, a practical 
grasp of concrete fact, and an unalterable belief 
in a democracy made by individuals for individ- 
uals. These qualities had made him part of the 
world-pioneering movement of America; they had 
made him one of the most powerful men in history. 
Upon these qualities in Americans he based his 



356 HERBERT HOOVER 

confidence that his country would stand unshaken 
by the great catastrophe, building a secure future 
on the firm foundations of the past. 




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